History's Strongest Shinobi
by Kenchi618
Summary: On that day years ago they put their faith in him, Naruto made a promise that he would be the best ninja he could be. Either all alone, or together with friends he was going to make his family proud. Whether the ninja underworld wanted him to or not he'd either die trying, or become the strongest shinobi in history. AU.
1. Where Do Ninjas Come From?

**Hey all, Kenchi618 here. New story time. **

**I wanted to try a crossover with Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple and Naruto for a while, but I didn't know how to do it and try and maintain the integrity of both series. I think I've finally come up with a way, but it'll take a bit of explanation in story to flesh it all out. There's a chance it'll be a bit too ambitious, but bear with me though, because I think it'll be a lot of fun.**

**And there will be struggles. Trust me. So let's load this one up and see if it can pass muster. **

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. And no, my name is not a typo of Kenichi. I've had _Kenchi_ as a nickname and an alias for years before I even got into manga and anime in a big way, and especially before I ever heard of the latter franchise by ten years. IT'S DIFFERENT BY INTENTION DAMN IT!

* * *

**History's Strongest Shinobi**

The ninja. Practitioners of the more clandestine aspects of combat such as sabotage, espionage, infiltration, and assassination. Formidable in open combat, capable of going head-to-head with their contrasting contemporaries in the samurai.

And much like the samurai, their time in the annals of Japanese history came and went, with only small schools of ninjutsu here and there surviving, much like the art of swordsmanship that had dwindled to a specifically small amount of serious practitioners that live and die by their craft.

Yes, their time in the annals of Japanese history had passed them by. The last gasp of ninja relevancy went out the door over a comparatively swift period of around twenty years after Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open itself up to the rest of the world in the 1850s. Japan became 'westernized'.

But then again so did the ninja.

While many other clans died out or faded away into obscurity, others banded together when they found themselves without masters and use in a country that had little use for their original purpose any longer. Those that banded together took note of the outside world and extended their reach farther than most people would ever come to know and live to tell of.

From all corners of the globe the ninjas resided and recruited, belonging to the one great clan that trained them. First generation ninjas would have children that would then be trained as ninjas before they were returned to them to continue living average lives, and so on and so forth, living amongst the regular people until they were called upon to act. Then they would once more return to their normal lives.

The clan was no modern fighting force, numbers only hovering around 1000 at its strongest, but they were specialized warriors, sticking closely to their traditions but still adapting to the times.

While there were still very few entire families that were still ninjas as remnants from the era gone by, first generation ninjas for the last one-hundred years were taken in by recruiters out of extremely young orphans or runaways willing to accept the offer. But they were so young it could be borderline perceived as exploitation.

Any generation past a first generation ninja would live with their parents until the age of five, when they would be sent to the island of origin to train underneath the masters there. Parents would be allowed to see their children twice a year and on birthdays until the ninja-in-training came of age at fifteen where they would be sent back to their families. Those without families would be sent out into the world to go it alone and live normal civilian lives.

But all kept in contact with the clan, in the instance that their services were required for the work they had trained for most of their childhoods for. Their work was for the good of the clan, that hired themselves out to anyone they saw fit. No one was their lord or master.

The last bastion of true, pure ninjutsu in the world.

The great confederation of the old clans: Konohagakure.

_(Prologue)_

_A bundle of nerves sat in the stomach of six-year old Uzumaki Naruto. He'd spent the last twelve hours on a boat going to some place he'd only heard by name for a few years, and now he was on the place where his parents said they'd been when they were his age. Some island called the Homeland. That was what his mother and father kept telling him anyway._

_He didn't even know where it was. All he knew was that it was a long way away from home and it took a long time to get there. Even the ninjas that lived there or worked for the clan didn't get to know where it was. His mother told him that you had to reach the rank of jounin to know exactly where the island was. They knew, but until he got there he'd have to get his orders from his nearest contact when he left._

_That wasn't going to be for a long time though._

"_I don't want you or the old man to go mom!" Little Naruto said, clinging tightly to his mother's leg as she walked with him through the stone halls full of other children standing in their doorways and staring at the new arrival. The little scruffy-headed blond boy hadn't left her side for the entire trip to the island, and once they reached the dorms where the kids would stay for the duration of their nine year training, "Why can't I go home?"_

_No one looked mean thus far. Just curious. But it was still scary. He didn't know any of those other kids._

_Uzumaki Kushina was a lovely woman with long, bright red hair that was completely different from Naruto's own. He got that from her husband. She had a black clip in her hair to part it out of her face and for the occasion of sending her first and only child off to train she chose to wear a gold and white colored sleeveless dress and black high-heeled sandals. Something memorable so that her little one would have something of a memory of her until he saw her next._

_Kushina couldn't keep the frown off of her face at her little son's query. She'd kept a brave face and a smile up for Naruto's sake, and Minato had been strong but now that she was back in the very halls where she'd spent much of her childhood, it hit her full-on that she was about to hand her baby over for the majority of his._

_It broke her heart, but she knew that the day was going to come from the moment that she had given birth to him. She was a ninja. Her husband was a ninja. Her family had been ninjas. It was the way things were, and this was how it had to be. It always had been._

"_It's the only way you can be trained. It's forbidden for the ninja arts to be taught outside of the Homeland for a Konoha ninja. There are a lot of reasons, like tradition to instill values and then there's-." Kushina realized that she was beginning to go on a tangent as she had a habit of doing when she was nervous and stopped only to pick Naruto off of the ground into her arms, "I know it'll be hard baby, but when you learn how to read better we'll write you all the time, and you'll see Minato and I one time in the winter and the summer, and on your birthday too."_

_Parents were restricted to three visits a year. This wasn't some boarding school._

"_You promise?" _

"_Absolutely, 'ttebane!" Kushina said cheerfully with a big reassuring grin, "We can send you things through the contacts to the island, and they'll tell us all about how you're doing! So don't act up or we'll hear all about it! Don't think just because you'll be here that you can get away with what you want. You do what they tell you or I'll find a way to get you okay? And you'll never know… I am a ninja after all."_

"_I'll be good!" Naruto quickly promised, waving his arms defensively. Knowing what some of what his mother was capable of, she probably could sneak onto that island and off without anyone ever knowing, and at times her temper could be pretty frightening, "You don't gotta do that!"_

_A sharp whistle farther down the hall attracted Kushina to where Minato was standing by a closed door. He'd gone on ahead to get the key to Naruto's room, to drop off the boy's luggage, and all sorts of other things that needed to be hashed out for his child's stay._

_Namikaze Minato was a tall man by Naruto's childish standards, and his posture was smooth, as if he were contemplating every move he could possibly make even though there was absolutely nothing happening. His hair was blond and spiky like Naruto's only more untamed with bangs framing his face that reached down to his jaw. He wore a brown slacks and a silver dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows._

_As Kushina approached with Naruto he gifted his son with a warm smile and set his hand on the boy's head, "Well this is your room Naruto. It's all yours, and I've unpacked your clothes and other things. You can put everything else where you want it to be later. What do you think?"_

_Naruto always thought his dad looked so cool. Way cooler than any other kid's dad. Other kids could say that their dads could beat up each other's dads all they wanted to. Naruto could definitely say it and not have it be speculation. Actually, his dad could also kill anyone else's dad without anyone ever knowing he did it too, but even with that he was always so cool and easygoing._

_Looking into his room once Kushina carried him in, it was pretty bare. It was just as big as his room at home, 8x10, and he had a window outside. There was enough space for him to make it his once he knew what he wanted, but for now it was pretty bare bones. There was a sleeping roll, a dresser with a mirror… and that was it. Other than the stuff he'd brought._

_It was a good thing Minato was so easygoing, because it had allowed him to put up with the way Naruto spoke to him for the last five years, "…There isn't really nothing in here old man." The little boy said earnestly with a shrug._

_Minato's eye twitched almost unnoticeably, same as it usually did when this happened. _

_Kushina thought it was funny to teach Naruto to call him old man after he called her mom first, probably because he'd pissed her off sometime around that same time and she wanted to get him back. It worked, and it stuck. As did the rampant disrespect that was somewhat similar to how his mother had treated Minato with before she'd fallen for him. He was more like her than she'd admit out loud and while she never condoned it she never admonished him for it either, and she always had a smirk on her face whenever Naruto would act delightfully belligerent._

_Now Naruto still listened to him like any other son should have and loved him and all that jazz, but he definitely always had known where his bread was buttered so to speak, and he knew full well who the taskmaster had always been in the house. The angel that gave him life and the devil with red hair was one in the same, and her name just so happened to be Kushina._

_Try as he might, Minato couldn't get over the 'old man' thing. Maybe five years just wasn't long enough to get used to it, 'I'm only thirty-three.' His miserly thoughts came to a close when he felt Naruto tug at his pant leg, getting him to look down into the big old eyes of his only child. God, he looked so much like them it was too much sometimes, "What's the matter little buddy?"_

"_I don't want you to go." Naruto said quietly, and this was a child that didn't speak softly unless he had to. He was almost as much of a motor-mouth as his mother could be. And with that kind of tone this had to be really getting to him. He already knew that though, "Why do you gotta leave?"_

_He could explain it all he wanted to the boy, but when it all came down to it, when Naruto would keep asking why, Minato couldn't break it down into terms that a five-year old would understand. No matter what they'd say in explanation Naruto would just keep saying 'How come?' and eventually they'd run out of ways to explain that he'd get. And just saying 'because that's the way things are' wasn't good enough._

_All he could do was ask his own question. The question he'd asked Naruto the day after his sixth birthday that had started all of this. He stooped down to Naruto's eyes, set his hands right on his shoulders and stared at him, "Naruto. Do you want to be a ninja?" He said with complete weightiness in his voice. _

_And that was it. Naruto rarely heard Minato speak with such severity. Only when he was really in trouble, or when Minato needed him to listen above all else. It was the kind of voice that made Naruto stop cold in his tracks. Even Kushina couldn't make him freeze solid the way Minato could. But he wasn't in trouble at all. This was a father making sure his son was of a clear enough mind to make his own choice._

"_I couldn't be any more serious." Minato continued, his eyes never leaving his son's similar blues, "This is the most important decision you're ever going to make, and I know it's not fair to make a child make such a decision, but it's the only time when it can ever be made. It's the most grown up thing I'm ever going to ask you." He let it sink in for a bit before Naruto nodded to let him know that he understood, "If you don't want to do it just say so, and we'll go home. It'll never come up again, and you can be a regular little boy."_

_Kushina stayed quiet at first. There'd be repercussions for taking Naruto there and then backing off at the last second. They'd probably be punished if such a thing occurred. Maybe Naruto too. But they could try and hurt her baby if they wanted to. Ninja business was ninja business, and if he said he didn't want to be a ninja they could just bite the bullet or she'd make them bite something else that was deadly and metal._

_The Kage council could kiss her ass if they wound up making a fuss. She and Minato were both jounin but that mattered not to her, "Listen to Minato Naruto. Neither of us would think badly of you at all if you said no, but you could never be a ninja. We couldn't train you ourselves or… bad things would happen. But this is going to be challenging."_

_Very bad things. The rules of their society were flexible, but they could be extremely strict at certain times, and the ways that one became a ninja were one of the most inflexible for certain reasons._

_But to Naruto… to never be a ninja?_

_His mother and father were the coolest people in the world to him. The amazing things they could do, the way they seemed to know how to handle everything, prepared for everything. If he was a ninja he could be like them. Just like them._

_The allure of being a ninja to someone too young to understand all it entailed was strong. It was how the outside contacts could dazzle parentless children into agreeing to join. Children were very impressionable and being a ninja was an easy way to impress them. All of the myths, then seeing a few base acrobatics, and BAM!_

_But Naruto took his parents' words to heart. They were being honest with him, and that made him want to make them proud even more._

_The choice was never a choice. He was a big kid, and big kids didn't get scared._

"_I want to be a ninja old man." Naruto said with a big grin on his face, "I'll stay."_

_Minato and Kushina both smiled down at him, and after a few hours that seemed like they couldn't stay for long enough, the sun set and they had to leave Naruto on his own._

_Giving her baby one last tight squeeze that she didn't want to let go of, Kushina said one last thing to Naruto before they had to go, "I know that sometimes this will be hard, and at times it might be scary. But no matter what happens don't ever let them change who you are. You're my sweetheart Naruto, and I love you very much." She wiped her eyes behind his back so he didn't see, "Now what's your name?"_

"_Uzumaki Naruto."_

"_Who are you?"_

"_Son of Minato Namikaze and Uzumaki Kushina, jounin of Konohagakure." _

"_And what are you going to do?"_

"_Be the best ninja ever!"_

_Kushina let out a teary laugh at his exuberance, "Don't ever forget that, and don't ever lose that. No matter what happens, I love you."_

"_Listen to your busybody mother." Minato instructed, joining his wife and son in their hug as he wiped her eyes for her, "We both do."_

_As they left their only child in the room, Naruto silently started crying to himself. No one ever heard him make a sound. Outside as his parents left through the long stone hallway to exit the dorms his mother never made a sound either, even as tears spilled from her eyes freely as well._

"_Is he going to be okay Minato?"_

"_Ah, have a little faith Kushina. He's our son after all. He'll be fine._

**Chapter 1: Where Do Ninjas Come From?**

* * *

(Ten Years Later)

"School." A blond young man with spiky hair said as he walked the hallways of the new high school that he was a first year student in, "I really can't stand this place you know? I've tried and I know why I'm here's important, but I just can't focus." His posture was a bit easygoing as he held his hands behind his neck to rest his head.

Despite the lax clothing policy of the school, he wore most of the uniform that he felt comfortable with. A white short-sleeved button-up shirt that he left untucked with a pair of orange-tinted ski goggles in the pocket and a black bookbag over his shoulders, and a pair of blue slacks that drifted down past the backs of his ankles.

He didn't want to dress like a _total_ bum even though he could wear whatever he wanted. He had to at least make a little bit of an effort.

Walking next to him on the way to find a new spot for lunch was another young man his height with spiky brown hair that reached his neck line and hung a bit in his brown eyes. He was a pretty average kid, and unlike Naruto he wore the entire long-sleeved blue uniform of the school with a yin-yang badge on his chest and carried a one-strap bag over his opposite shoulder. He had a sheepish look on his face at Naruto's nonchalance when it came to his education, "Oh, it's not really that bad Naruto-san. You've just got to find something about it that you like."

"Like you and your how-to book reading?"

"Yeah, exactly. There you go."

Naruto grinned over at his acquaintance and reached out a hand to pat him on the back, "You know I've got nothing against reading Kenichi." When he gave what he thought was a good-natured thump on his friend's back, the boy stumbled forward several steps and had to be grabbed by the back of his collar to stay upright, "Whoa! Come on man, brace yourself."

"Manga doesn't really count as reading Naruto-san." Kenichi said as Naruto helped him remain upright, 'Man, this guy really doesn't know his own strength even after a year of knowing him!'

"Yeah they do." Naruto replied, "They could serve as 'how-to-be awesome' books."

To Kenichi, Naruto was weird. Flat out weird. There was just no other way to put it. They'd met when they were first-years in middle school but it was really just in passing as classmates. Even back then Naruto had been an odd bird from what he'd seen, but they'd never interacted until the last year of middle school.

It was kind of strange, and they were complete opposites for the most part. Kenichi was pretty introverted. He was timid and didn't like rocking the boat with others. He went along to get along for the most part, and he was pretty flaky.

Naruto on the other hand was extremely outgoing and had a tendency to be pretty boisterous and brash. He wasn't a shy guy to say the very least. He wasn't very formal or respectful to anyone either, but it didn't seem to be by design, it was just the way he was. He wasn't a mean person, he was actually pretty nice. But he could be blunt to a fault.

He always seemed to be staring around at more than what was in front of him. It wasn't a thousand-yard stare per se, because he was still aware, but he seemed to be looking for more, like there was something that wasn't there. They'd been good friends for about a year and he'd never seen Naruto's home even though Naruto in turn had been to Kenichi's. His family even knew him fairly well. Naruto never invited him to hang out after school, or anything.

If Kenichi didn't have Naruto's cell phone number he could honestly say that he probably wouldn't even know how to find the guy outside of school! He'd tried to tail him once or twice, but he'd see Naruto turn a corner and he'd just disappear into thin air!

Even as they found a mostly empty classroom with only one other girl inside studying to sit down in to eat lunch, he was still pondering deeply about his friend. His only friend really.

Kenichi wasn't very smooth or cool. He wasn't tough or strong or had a fetching personality. He wasn't handsome. There wasn't anything about him worth noting at all.

At least Naruto had a pretty interesting appearance. Mileage may have varied on his facial features since Kenichi wasn't about to judge another man's attractiveness, but even though girls weren't into him either, when you looked at him you found it hard to ignore him. Maybe it was the random goggles he tended to wear from time to time?

So that begged the question.

"Naruto why are we friends?"

Naruto had been in the middle of enjoying a nice broth of some sort of soupy concoction from his metal thermos on-hand before that question had been sprung on him. He lowered the thermos and swallowed his lunch as he seemed to be looking at Kenichi with both of his eyes closed. Another quirk of his. How did he do that?

"Uh…" Naruto said eloquently before shrugging to seemingly nothing, "I'm not getting you comrade. What are you talking about?"

Kenichi wasn't going to allow that to stop his train of thought, "I mean… well, you know what I mean. I'm kind of a loser." Naruto cringed at the ease with which Kenichi could talk himself down.

"Bullies again?" Naruto asked, giving off a sigh when Kenichi didn't answer, "You want to know why I'm friends with you, even though you can be a real downer sometimes, and even though a good gust of wind can knock you down on a given day, and even though-?"

"I get it Naruto-san." Kenichi deadpanned, feeling about two feet tall right then.

At least Naruto had the good fortune to look sheepish for shooting his mouth off, "Well even though there's all of that, I'm friends with you because you're a good guy. You're actually a really awesome guy, and you're as good a friend as a guy like me can ask for. And guys like us have gotta stick together."

That got him to puff his chest out a bit. He was thinking that Naruto was friends with him because hanging out with the only person in the school definitely seen as a bigger loser than him would deflect all of that sentiment away from him, "Oh. I was kind of thinking for a moment that you just hang out with me because I make a good meat-shield for the delinquents."

"What? Of course not Kenichi. How could you say that? I could never use you as a meat-shield." Naruto said, sounding affronted at the mere thought, "…Effective meat-shields can take more than one hit."

And just like that the moment was over with and gone.

"I'm going to go refill my thermos and get a drink." Kenichi said, getting off of one of the desks he'd been sitting on to leave for a bit, "I might head back to class early to try and talk to sensei for a bit."

"Alright man, see you there." Naruto said, getting out a pair of chopsticks from his lunch to begin picking noodles out of his thermos to eat.

Conversation aside, today had been pretty good for Kenichi. He and Naruto had finally found a classroom to eat lunch in where someone didn't enter and proceed to emasculate him for kicks. Maybe that could become their regular spot?

XxX

As Naruto continued to quietly enjoy his homemade food, a trio of second-year students walked in and took account of who was in the room before shutting the door. They sneered at Naruto and figured they could deal with him next if he didn't take the hint and get scared off from the 'warning' they were about to give the fairer denizen of the room.

Like Naruto they didn't wear the school uniform, but they didn't even bother half-assing trying to look presentable, looking more like run-of-the-mill street thugs than anything else.

"Hey, get out." One of the brutes said to the other girl sitting in the room minding her own business studying, "This is the place we go to during lunch. Has been all year. If you ain't looking to have a bit of fun just get on up and step off."

The way they surrounded the girl's desk immediately alarmed her, and the fact that the only other person in the room was some non-descript blond kid that had been eating with the scrawny brown-haired guy only made it worse. He wasn't going to be any help, "B-But, lunch is over in five minutes and this is my classroom."

"Well if lunch is over in five minutes, this isn't your classroom for the next five minutes." Another boy said, dropping his hands right in the middle of her book before ripping through half of one of the pages, "Heh, who studies during lunch anyway? Get a boyfriend!"

"No, stop! Those are expensive!"

"Wrong place, wrong time I guess." The third one said as he grabbed her by her arm and tried to pull her out of her seat to shove her on out.

A sharp whistle directed their attention back to Naruto who was still sitting on the desk with his eyes closed, "I don't think she likes being touched." He said, holding his drink that he'd gotten earlier from a vending machine, "You guys should probably just go and get back to class, it's kind of late."

A chuckle came up from one of the boys as he left go of the girl's arm and let her be in exchange for the meat that had actually started raising a stink, "And just what happens in this fantasy world of yours if we don't just run off? He gestured to the tall aluminum can in Naruto's hand, "You'll kill us with your coffee can?" The others started chuckling at that, making fun of Naruto's cheap-looking container.

"It's green tea actually."

The laughter stopped, "What was that?"

Naruto didn't mince words, "I'll kill you with my tea can."

The first boy that spoke clenched his fists until one of his running buddies set a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, "Hey, we've got three minutes before anyone else'll come in here. Why not?" With a grin spreading on his face he moved down the aisle where Naruto was and started running at him in case he smartened up and tried to run away.

Naruto did not run away. Quicker than anyone could have anticipated, Naruto jumped up and stuck the can longways onto the attacker's forehead before punching it and crushing it with a metallic crunch, knocking him back down the aisle cleanly on his back, out cold.

His friends recoiled in shock and got into hunched postures to prepare and fight Naruto who sat back down with his bag and his lunch. Instead of doing or saying anything else, Naruto reached back into his bag and pulled out an extremely worn and small, but still very sharpened pencil that he sat directly on the table right next to him while he stared directly at them both, not opening his eyes the entire time.

It was the standoff that wasn't as within ten seconds they had grabbed up their KOed friend and left the room in a hurry.

As they reached the door, Naruto cleared his throat to get them to stop. At this he opened his eyes to reveal alarmingly bright blue eyes staring at them like a jaguar did its prey, "Nobody has to know that _I_ beat you up. I won't tell if you won't." They said nothing, but they just kept going, shutting the door behind them in case he gave chase as if it would slow him down.

'Everything's a weapon.' Naruto thought to himself as he pocketed his pencil back and started packing up his lunch, "…I wouldn't really have killed those guys, but they didn't need to know that." He muttered to himself before getting up to leave.

"Wait!" The girl from before said just as he reached the door, "Thank you senpai. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

Senpai? She was a first year just like him from the look of her. With a snap of his fingers, Naruto gave her a big grin, "Yeah." He then put a finger to his lips and mimicked a shush, "Could you keep that a secret? I don't run with any gangs, and don't really have any friends to get my back. I don't need that kind of tough guy attention. Don't want to get beat up you know."

'Not much of a fighter? Right.' The slightly skeptical girl just nodded, eventually guessing that Naruto had lucked out and didn't want word to get out so even more people might look for him to get revenge. Even so, she owed him and wouldn't tell anyone what happened later.

Reassured by the girl, Naruto went along his way just as the bell rang to end lunch.

XxX

(Later that Day – City Streets)

"Hey, Naruto-san, what do you think about joining the school's Karate Club with me?" Kenichi asked Naruto as they walked home from school. After lunch when Naruto had returned to their classroom he found Kenichi with his clothes more disheveled than they had been when he'd left him. He didn't say anything about it, so Naruto didn't bring it up, "I mean, we're required to join a club anyway and you haven't done it yet. Who knows, we might get strong?"

"Eh…" Naruto said not sounding very enthused at all at the prospect of joining that club, "Not much of a fan of people trying to beat me to a pulp." Which was what happened to Kenichi in that club, every day, "Half of the bullies in the school are in the Karate Club Kenichi. I think you should think that one through a bit more and switch out."

"I know what it looks like." Kenichi admitted, "But I can't quit and just prove that I'm weak. If I'm a club member and admit I'm beneath them eventually they'll teach me right?" For once instead of people just trying to beat him up at least he'd get something out of it. Teaching and learning Karate was the point of the club wasn't it?

"I don't know." Naruto said as he affixed his goggles around his head on his forehead to keep his bangs out of his eyes, "Shouldn't you join a club with stuff you actually like in it?" Nothing in the school was appealing enough for him to take an interest in.

"I like the martial arts." Kenichi defended, "You know I've always been interested in them."

"I've never seen you throw a single punch at anything ever though." Naruto replied bluntly, "Besides, you'd be better off trying out for a real dojo. School clubs like that are notoriously top-heavy aren't they?"

The concept went over average young man's head as he didn't really get what Naruto was referring to, "I don't get you."

"I mean, it's like one guy that actually knows what they're doing-." Explained Naruto, squinting his eyes in concentration as he kept thinking of a way to get his point across, "-But only because they're a sucky bottom-tier guy at a real dojo. You won't get strong there."

"That was… kind of mean." Kenichi pointed out, "Why would you say that?" Those guys seemed pretty hard to him. If he didn't have headgear when they used him as a punching bag he'd shudder to think of what he'd look like.

"It's an assumption, but it's got some merit." Naruto said, "Our school's not even nationally ranked for Karate. They don't try to compete in tournaments. It's just a club for punks to hang out, punch stuff, and talk about other times that they hung out and punched stuff. They're just jerks."

"Well do you know about any good dojos for Karate?"

"Ahehe." The blond student laughed a bit sheepishly before pulling his goggles down over his face to hide his eyes, "Nnnnnoooo…" He drawled out in a long, unsure manner, "Not for _just_ Karate…"

Come to think of it, Kenichi probably shouldn't have been surprised that Naruto didn't have any interest in getting involved with fighting. Naruto never seemed to ever get riled up enough to come to blows with anyone. He never stood up to fight with people that tried to mess with either of them, instead just smiling his big grin and trying to talk a situation down. It was surprisingly effective.

It worked more times to ease tensions than a few when he didn't stick his foot in his mouth, but it didn't show a lot for his backbone. He never ran from anything, but then again he never ran toward anything either. Sometimes though, every blue moon Naruto would turn up in school looking like he'd taken quite the beatdown, but like him he never said anything about it, even though he'd never seen Naruto get hit.

He couldn't really say anything about Naruto and his backbone or lack thereof when he himself was about as spineless as a jellyfish.

Without warning, Naruto turned off down a street that he usually didn't see Naruto take, "Hey, where are you going?" He was certain that Naruto didn't live that way.

"I've got something to go do before I go home." Naruto said, waving of his shoulder as he left Kenichi behind, "I'll see you tomorrow in class."

Kenichi had a mind to try and follow him again to see just what his sole friend got up to on his own time, but he'd never even get close to wherever Naruto was going before he'd know he was being followed and would lose him in a heartbeat.

Honestly, the guy was like a shadow sometimes.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town)

A teenage boy with a placid expression on his face walked down the street in a residential neighborhood with a yawn as he neared his apartment complex. He wore a black school uniform and had one hand lazily shoved into his pocket while the other carried his bag over his shoulder, 'School was a drag like always…' He thought to himself as he ran a hand through his black hair that was kept in an upright spiky ponytail, "But it beats the hell out of the Homeland, that's for sure."

"Oh don't be that way Shikamaru. There were some good times back there too."

Upon hearing that voice, the boy let out a great sigh and directed his attention up to the landing of the floor that his apartment was on, and fought with himself about going upstairs to deal with that troublesome person.

But he was standing in the way of him reaching his bed so that he could take a nice long nap into the night before he could go back to sleep later. So he had to go up, and up the stairs he went, greeted by the grinning face of…

"Uzumaki Naruto." Shikamaru said as if someone had told him that he'd gotten a parking ticket, "Back again?"

"You could at least act like you're happy to see me, just a little bit." Naruto said as he followed Shikamaru to his apartment door, "We're the only point of contact for the other, but that doesn't matter. You know I come back every single week. Let's go inside so we can talk about the mission."

"No need. I already know what you're going to ask, and it's the same answer I gave you last week, and the week before, and every week before this for the last four years." Shikamaru said. Even though he didn't think Naruto to be the type, he wasn't about to open his door with his back turned to anyone. They were trained better than that, even if he did his best to forget it, "There's no messages. There's no new mission for you or me. There's never a new mission. We've got the same one they sent us off the island with and nothing else to supplement it. No new or rescinded objectives, it's the same damn thing."

"You shouldn't talk about that out here in the open." Naruto said with a frown on his face, "And that mission is hard. I can't think of a way to do it. I've tried everything I can think of. What about you?"

'That's because it's impossible for a genin. We're not supposed to pass it. They never wanted us to pass it.' Shikamaru would have palmed his face if he didn't have a modicum of pity for the poor bastard. He wanted to scream it in his face, to spell out for him something that his faith in their culture wouldn't let him see for himself.

But that was cruel. Crueler than Shikamaru was willing to be for no other reason than to crush a man's soul, and he wouldn't do that. One day he hoped Naruto would see the truth the way he did before it killed him. But maybe Naruto would rather die believing in something than live for nothing.

Smoothing a hand through his hair, Naruto pulled out his cell phone to check what time it was, "Well, I'm going to be trying something again tonight. If the stars align maybe I can finally finish this mission so I can wait for my next one."

"Don't worry about it." Shikamaru said before walking into his apartment, leaving Naruto outside, "Just go home Naruto. If you try it again the same thing's going to happen as always."

The truth that he saw the moment they were placed on that boat to leave the island that trained them, the truth that almost broke him after the first time they'd tried, failed, and he'd subsequently accepted it and quit.

The truth that they weren't special.

They didn't have something that the other students lacked.

Instead they sorely lacked something that the other students actually had in the minds of the kage council. In Shikamaru's case it had been belief, drive, and motivation. In Naruto's case it was different. He believed in Konohagakure… but they thought he was too empathetic, an occurrence in his life effecting him too negatively to recover from in their view.

Being called upon to leave the Homeland Island early wasn't an honor that meant you were ready for life as a functional ninja. They were sent away before their training was complete. Given an impossible task for the pair of them that they could never complete. And the reason was simple.

Because they were never expected to complete it. Ever, 'Naruto, even if you get in there and get out with what you need there's nowhere to take it to. Don't you see?' There wasn't even a way to turn in their results.

They didn't know how to get to the island by design unless you were a jounin, and they took great pains to make sure of such, especially on the way out. They were told that someone would find and contact them, but neither had heard a peep in four years. No attempts to check on their progress or if they were still alive. Konohagakure had washed their hands of them because they thought that they weren't up to snuff.

They were sent away to wash out and die. And they couldn't even do that right.

XxX

(Later that Night)

Night had fallen, and Naruto had only made a quick stop home to grab some stuff such as a change of clothes and some other things before heading back out. He walked down the sidewalks at a reserved pace, slow and deliberate as he carried himself to his intended destination with the same kind of gait that he used to see his father use when he was a very little boy.

There was no need to rush to where he was going. No matter when he showed up it'd still be the same as it always was. Man, that was negative.

He always used to wonder why his father, a man he knew for a fact was faster than his eyes could see, would most often move so slowly, so deliberately, when he didn't have to, but now he was beginning to get the reason why. At least he thought so. He couldn't ask. There wasn't anyone to ask.

'Mind off of that!' Naruto thought to himself as he was nearing the insertion point to begin his mission. He could tell because he'd done this enough times that his body knew this portion of town by heart and already knew to dread it. But he'd never back off, 'This is your mission. Your first mission. You have to complete it. No matter how many tries you need. No matter how long it takes.'

Trying to pump himself up with his own ongoing inner mantra, Naruto took several rapid breaths and looked down at his feet before breaking out in a run once he saw that the streets and sidewalks were clear. He needed the streets to be clear before he started running as he couldn't let anyone see him moving that fast.

Eventually a patch of land that had a 15 foot wall erected around the entire property came into view, and right at the front of it was a large gate that was twice as tall, with a pair of iron doors too thick and heavy for a normal person to open.

'That's fine.' He thought to himself, pulling a rope and grappling hook from his bag that he used to reach the tallest building in the nearby area. It would give him a decent view into his target grounds.

Laying down on the rooftop in question, on his belly as he peered over that wall and took account of everything he was seeing, he pulled his goggles down over his eyes and took into account his change of clothes from what he'd been wearing earlier that day.

His pants were black and had the bottoms of them placed inside of black high-top shoes to keep any loose articles of clothing from trailing. He wore a regular form-fitting long-sleeved black t-shirt that was tucked into his belt enough to work similarly to his pants; no loose articles. He looked normal enough to walk around casually without scrutiny, but it was as functional as he needed it to be for what he was doing.

'Tonight's the night.' He thought to himself, doing a little prayer just in case something went wrong… again, 'After all of these years, and all of those asskickings, this is the night I finally infiltrate Ryouzanpaku; the dojo of the strongest! This time'll be the charm! I'll make it in and complete my mission of-!'

Oops. Well no he wouldn't, because there was already the noticeably heavy weight of a sword against the base of his spine.

"You… again?"

At the sound of that very calm, dull, almost bored-sounding female voice, Naruto felt a shiver go down his spine but didn't make any sudden moves, 'No! I didn't even make it over the wall this time? I've been training my ass off for this try!' Actually, he didn't move at all. Not a muscle. No, no, he wasn't going to make any sudden moves here. He'd walked that far in the snow before and he didn't like the destination that would await him one bit.

He felt a slender, smooth finger poke him in the side of the head several times as if trying to get him to react somehow, but he didn't budge. Not even his eyes moved off of the sight of Ryozanpaku. He didn't need to look to see who it was. It was the only denizen of the dojo that ever bothered trying to sneak up on him when they caught him, and he used the word 'trying' loosely since he doubted she was really trying at all.

And this woman wasn't a ninja? She might as well have been.

He didn't need to see what she looked like because he already knew. She was a tall and extremely gorgeous young lady several years older than him, _very _well-endowed in Naruto's opinion with emotionless purple eyes. Her dark hair trailed down her back in one long ponytail tied with pink string ribbon. She had purple stockings that travelled halfway up her thighs and simple sandals to go with a pink loose-sleeved kimono, with a very long nodachi in her hand that hadn't been poking his skull, bandages covering the hilt.

Naruto was very intimate with it one could say.

And she'd been the first master of Ryouzanpaku he'd had a run-in with. Kousaka Shigure: The Prodigy of Sword and the Mistress of all Weaponry.

The first time he'd ever even come to Ryouzanpaku when he was twelve he'd tried to sneak in over the wall, and she cut him from waist to shoulder before he'd even gotten used to his settings. She didn't kill him though. She just kicked his unconscious body out of the front gate.

And once again, she was pointing a sword at his spine.

"What is… your name?" She said, finally standing up directly over top of Naruto as she held him at blade-point.

"You don't sound like you care that much." He eventually said, knowing that she didn't take him as enough of a threat to do anything as long as he remained still.

"I don't care… at all." The woman freely admitted, "…But you have been trying to break in for years now." How many times had it been at this point? Fifty? More? There had to be something that he was after, "And… we don't know your name."

Naruto was expecting to get his ass kicked more upon being discovered. He usually did. Every single time he'd ever tried to get inside of Ryozanpaku he got caught and then he got destroyed when he tried to run. No, destroyed wasn't the right word. He got ANNIHILATED. But that was what you got when you picked with master-level martial artists.

But Ryouzanpaku were absolute monsters.

They never killed him though, or had him arrested. They would put him down hard, and fast. Oh so fast. And then they'd chuck him out over the wall into the shrubs outside where he'd wake up the next morning and go home… or to school depending on what day it was. Kenichi would always stare so much at the damage he showed up with, as did a lot of others, but at least the guy was willing to respect certain points of his privacy and he never asked about it.

He oftentimes thought about why the Konohagakure organization would send a pair of newbie ninjas to do a mission like this, and Shikamaru kept trying to convince him to let it go. But he couldn't.

He wouldn't.

How could he do something like that? Run away from his very first mission, even if it seemed impossible for him? His parents never did, and he wouldn't either. They had been amazing ninjas, and he would be too. Konohagakure believed in him and Shikamaru enough to send them away earlier than any other student in their age group, by themselves, to tackle such a difficult assignment.

'I believe. I believe in myself.' Naruto thought to himself despite being pinned down with no foreseeable way to counter. Maybe this time. This time he had something up his sleeve that could overcome one of them, 'Don't ever let them change who you are.'

The moment his muscles twitched to make a move, the woman above him rendered him unconscious with a single stroke of her blade's blunt side.

She just stood over him and stared at Naruto's body before shrugging to herself and jumping from their perch on the biggest building on the block, clearing three other houses and the entire street before she soared over the walls of Ryozanpaku to return from whence she came.

And there Naruto remained on the rooftop, where he would slumber until daybreak.

_(Flashback – Seven Years Ago)_

_Though the time flew by the routine remained the same. _

_School for ninjas in training was pretty uniform. For the young ones like Naruto, they were taught elementary things that they would have learned in normal schools for kids. Reading, language, geography, general history, math and science, and culture, the latter being the favorite class for pretty much every student because it involved a lot of TV and movies, and anything that would let them understand what was to be expected of normal people outside of the island. _

_The reason for the existence of the culture class being that even though the kids were isolated for the privacy of their organization they would not send their trainees out into the world ignorant. They would know as much as they could of the world and how to act in it, as it could and would keep them alive and help them complete their missions. Contrary to popular belief, ninjas actually liked their ilk to have personalities. Being as rigid as a board and unemotional raised too many red flags. Being normal and blending in was the best way to go about with any assignment._

_Aside from that, the children also got physical conditioning. Quite a lot of it. A healthy ninja was a strong ninja after all._

_Winding down from their afternoon P.T. sessions, the children were being put through their final paces of the day in the forested courtyard provided for their entire class to learn in day-in and day-out._

_A man with brown hair up in a ponytail and a scar across his nose stood dressed in the white ninja attire of the shinobi shouzoku that was only really used and worn at the Homeland Island, only required to be worn during official training as a uniform. It was the stereotypical ninja outfit, but in all white, with no loose articles of clothing whatsoever along with tabi socks and sandals. The children wore the same outfit, but in black._

_At the front of a gathering of students all facing him he stood calmly breathing in and out as he watched the 20 nine-year olds all do the same. Classes were separated by age, as by the time they turned fifteen they would be sent out into the world or given the option to stay. Those ninjas that stayed would be the standing force in case the island needed to be defended. They also tended to the land, the school grounds, the children, and other responsibilities as their official jobs and were clothed in white uniforms it was easier than going out into the world, but you didn't get to leave really at all._

"_Alright." The man said, giving a signal for the kids to be at ease for a moment, "Okay, today we're going to start preparing you for the year-end tests to mark your progress and see what you all need work on respectively if you ever want to pass by the time coming-of-age occurs. So we'll do a quick run-through for each of you to make sure you'll know what's expected of you this time. It'll be harder than last years, so prepare well. Am I understood?"_

"_Yes Iruka-sensei." All of the students, both male and female sounded off at once._

_A smile came to his face at that and he continued on, "Now we're going to pick on all of you a little bit, one row at a time." All of the students tensed up, as it was going to be something surprising. It always was. _

_Whenever they were told they were about to be picked on by one of the instructors that usually meant that something random was about to happen and they had to react accordingly or get called out for it. Thus the first row of kids moved forward and stood straight up, waiting for the start._

_Without warning or a movement from Iruka, a row of blunted shuriken, one for each of the five children in the front row, flew right at them. Without a sound or any other prompting, each child in that row immediately crouched down low enough to avoid it and pulled out a blunted training kunai, set down in a posture to defend themselves with their eyes darting around suspiciously to analyze the entire forested courtyard._

_Iruka said nothing but he nodded in approval. Preparing to defend one's self was the appropriate course of action in such a situation. That was basic, learning how to respond to a mystery threat, 'Do not panic under duress. Do not move in a random direction, otherwise you might fall prey to where your opponent wished for you to be steered.'_

_Iruka lifted his hands and began moving his fingers around, raising up a great maze of metal wires that he'd prepared well in advance and connected to his fingers just before talking about the exercise they were about to do._

_The movement allowed the wire to become visible to the students as a warning, "Reach me." He said._

_At that his fingers started to dance around and the children were then forced to dodge the shifting wires without being caught up in them and dangling. Two ninjas-in-training were caught shortly while three others took their time and worked their way through the maze without moving slow enough to touch any of them. Touching real stretched out metal ninja wire was as good as cutting yourself. It was razor-sharp._

_Eventually they worked their way through with great effort and reached the end, all tired from the constant movement and the adrenaline of not wanting to get caught. As the last thing, Iruka pulled out a small decorative bell and gave it a jingle before smiling, "Get this bell from me if you can." He said in a challenging voice._

_Two of the ninja children immediately sprang into action while one stood back and did nothing. One with black spiky hair and black eyes, the other with thin red hair and freckles._

_It didn't take Iruka long to get rid of one of them. While he dodged the first's attempt at a sliding kick tackle, the second came straight on planning to use the distraction of the first attack and his hands to fight with. Not a bad tactic against someone on your level, but he was a chunin, and these weren't even close to genin. He simply sank his fist into the child's belly harshly, dropping him to the ground breathlessly sucking air._

_The second child was a bit harder to get rid of. For a nine year old he fought furiously. A little boy with black upright hair's eyes blazed over with determination to take that bell. Alternating between attacking with punches and kicks and reaching for the bell when he thought he'd worked his way to it._

_Eventually though, he overextended himself reaching for a bell in a bluff of Iruka's and got bopped on the head with the bottom of his fist hard enough to scatter his brains and knock him to the ground too._

"_Good intensity Sasuke, but your first attack was too advanced. Your technique was good though, but without developing the speed for using it a strong opponent would not fall for it." Iruka said as the boy he just bopped got up and walked to the other students to get to the back of the line. His onyx eyes shone in acknowledgement of the compliment, "Jon, work on your approach. Don't telegraph a move coming in." Iruka said to the other boy that had tried to fight him._

_He said nothing to the third boy, the one that had not fought him to begin with. All he did was gesture with his head for him to go to the back of the line, "Naruto. You're done."_

_Naruto smiled slightly and rubbed his hair before doing just that. As he moved to the back of the line he could hear a lot of the other students whispering about how he didn't try to take the bell because he knew Iruka would have beaten him up too. And how Naruto hoped to get good marks if he didn't believe in his hand-to-hand well enough to spar with the teacher during class._

_Once he got to his place at the back of line back in their original rows as the next group went through Iruka's random tests, Sasuke sent him a momentary smirk, but when Naruto turned to look at him he was already facing the front again._

_Naruto narrowed his eyes at him and at everything everyone else was saying, his cheeks stained red with embarrassment, but he just shook his head and didn't say a thing._

_XxX_

_From a distance up amongst the trees, two of the eldest ninjas on the island stood in hiding, watching the next generation of Konohagakure ninjas learning their art. A man in a black kimono with spiky, balding grey hair and liver spots on his face looked down with a smile, "Did you see that Danzo?"_

"_The boy that didn't fight?" Danzo responded. He was also quite old, with spiky black hair, bandages covering one eye while the other stayed closed, a cane in one hand and the other in a sling and thick cast, "Yes. He was the only one in his group that passed all of the trials. His teacher never told that they needed to take the bell, only to do it if they could. None of them would have been able to."_

"_A ninja does not engage in combat when there is no need." Hiruzen said as if reciting a rule, "Violence is saved for only when necessary. Most younglings are so quick to resort to trying to show their skills to get what they need when there at times is no reason for such a thing."_

"_They will learn though." Danzo said in return, "They are just now beginning to learn the basics of our way. It will come in time. But that one is already very advanced is he not? The boy that stayed back?" _

"_Yes. Naruto is his name I believe. Second-generation ninja on his father's side, seventh-generation on his mother's. Both of them jounin, and his father's near being issued Kage-status like you and I?" _

_Kage was the most powerful class of ninja available._

_The system went that all ninjas deemed good enough to begin working were given the rank of genin. From there a promotion to chunin was possible, pending enough support from others of the same ranking after more experience and skill was garnered. The same went for jounin only longer and more difficult._

_A kage was rare. The best of the best. The highest level achievable. All kage-level ninjas remained on Homeland Island, with a place for them reserved on the council that governed the entire organization. There were currently only thirteen members serving at the lofty position, and most of them were over the age of fifty._

"_Namikaze?" Danzo said with a touch of astonishment in his bland voice, "He's rather young for such a consideration isn't he? As a man with no background in his family before him of being a shinobi that is extremely impressive." How that man ended up with someone like Uzumaki Kushina was beyond him. She was an incredible ninja but… her personality as a ninja was not what they wished._

_The way she did things walked the line of acceptance within their clan. Hopefully she didn't pass that down her lineage to her son._

"_His son seems to be shaping up as well, but we may be getting ahead of ourselves." Hiruzen said. A positive mindset in regards to the children they were training was always what was needed of those that came before them. A grin then appeared on his face, "I wonder if he'd thought to ask for the bell nicely."_

(End Flashback)

XxX

His dreams from the past broken, Naruto returned to the land of the conscious amid sharp pokes to his side. He cracked his blue orbs open to find them filled with morning sunlight.

So he got knocked out again. That woman with the weapons was just too fast. Not that he'd had a good position to begin fighting from to begin with. If he'd have been standing he'd have made a real fight of it.

Oh who was he kidding? He'd have gotten taken out just as quickly if he'd been facing her at the ready. The only difference would have been that he might have seen her take her first few steps before he lost track of her and she put him to sleep just as decisively.

"It's time to wake up ninja-kun." A bright and cheerful girl's voice said as she continued to try and prod him awake, "I heard from Shigure-san that you tried to break in again last night. What do you want from us anyway? Maybe if you told us you wouldn't have to do… well, this."

"Mmmph." Naruto moaned without opening his mouth as he turned his head to face the person messing with him, "Huh… Ryouzanpaku-hime. I haven't seen you in a while."

Said 'Ryouzanpaku Princess' was a lovely teenage girl Naruto's age with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes and a beauty mark under her left eye. For some reason her hair was plaited into a single braid to go along with the two purple clips she wore to keep it out of her face, which was odd because it was loose every other time he'd seen her. He didn't want his eyes to drift any lower than her face out of respect because if he did he would have wound up staring. Her body was absolutely stunning. Grown women would kill to have a full figure like hers. Said figure was clad in a blazer for some kind of school uniform and a plaid-patterned skirt.

An absolutely adorable pout came to her face after hearing what Naruto called her and she poked him several more times slightly harsher than before, "My name is Miu ninja-kun. Fuurinji Miu. You know that."

"Of course I do." He did. But it didn't feel right to be so familiar with someone that he was trying to take something from, especially since she already knew that he was. Then again, she was the only Ryouzanpaku denizen that had never knocked him out within the time-frame of five seconds.

"And I still don't know yours." Miu said, crossing her arms and pushing her chest out as she continued to sit on her knees next to him, "After four years."

"Oh, don't be like that." Naruto replied, wiggling his arms and legs enough to make sure Shigure hadn't paralyzed him when she'd hit him in the neck to knock him out, "Who tries to be friends with the ninja trying to get over on them? We've fought how many times again?"

"Ten times." Miu supplied with a helpful smile.

A confused look came over Naruto's face at that, "No way. I figured it would have been way more than that. I've run into you like six times by yourself trying to break into your house."

Furrowing her brow in thought, Miu eventually pounded into one hand out of realization, "Oh! You're counting all the times you ran away and hid. Well that would make it fourteen, but some of those don't count for what we did silly." And that chapped Naruto's hide.

Yes, he ran away sometimes while they had been fighting. It was a perfectly sound tactic, and it had led to some of his more dominant victories over her when he'd actually trapped her or turned the tables several times. But the only times he had ever hidden when he'd been in the middle of a fight with her was not because of her! It was because of the monster that showed up every single time he started winning!

"_YOU THINK IT WOULD BE THAT EASY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE MASTERS OF RYOUZANPAKU AND MY GRANDDAUGHTER!?"_

Now he wasn't afraid of anything, or anything that he would readily admit to, but her grandfather was fucking terrifying! She descended from him? No way, not that cute little thing. Not from him, not at all. Naruto would not accept that as a reality, because her grandfather was by far the most horrifying master inside of Ryouzanpaku.

And without fail, no matter what, whenever Miu wound up being the one trying to deal with him and couldn't defeat him herself… if he started winning, if he had her on the ropes and was preparing to subdue her so he could keep on going, her gigantic demigod of a grandfather would show up and smoke him on sight. Even if their fight hadn't made a hint of a ruckus by the time he found them.

He could run from the man the second he saw him. His foot wouldn't touch the ground in the opposite direction one time before everything went dark and he woke up with more injuries than he could ever remember having. All he could do was turtle and hope he landed somewhere comfortable after he was punted out, because if 'The Invincible Superman' Fuurinji Hayato was the master that got to him he wouldn't wind up just outside of the walls in the shrubs or just down the block.

It was like the man had a sixth sense for knowing whenever anyone was screwing with Miu. Or was it just him?

Either way, the best option when she was the one that confronted him on Ryouzanpaku grounds was usually to just run from her… because even at times when he actually could beat her or had a trap planned, he never seemed to win fast enough to escape a secondary asswhupping.

When they fought, she was a fierce enemy. The fiercest he'd ever fought… that didn't destroy him outright. Outside of the walls, like now, she was an absolute delight. Really easy to talk to. Such a sweet girl. It was like she didn't acknowledge the fact that he was an enemy outside, which was probably partially his fault too since he was just as affable outside of his mission.

"Well I should go to school right now, but my head is killing me so I think I'll just lay here and try to think of a new way to get into Ryouzanpaku before I go home." Naruto said rather nonchalantly for speaking to the person whose home he was going to try and infiltrate.

"Good luck with that!" Miu chirped brightly, patting him on the head, "Speaking of school, I have to go to class now. I'm starting at a new school I transferred to today."

"Killer." Naruto said earnestly with a thumbs-up, "I hope it goes well." He then noticed something that stood out about how she looked, "What's with the glasses?" He had fought against her a bunch of times. He knew full well that she had perfect vision and did not need them.

"Heh, just trying to avoid attention and look normal."

"Ah, I gotcha." And he really did, "Well, bye -hime."

"Bye! See you later ninja-kun!"

Weird. Were they friends? Nah, he was trying to take something important from within Ryouzanpaku's walls. You couldn't be friends with someone that lived in the place you were trying to burgle, even if you were cordial with each other. They were more like rivals. Kind of.

He would go in, sometimes she'd try to stop him. If she couldn't stop him or never discovered him during his mission attempts, another master would. That was how it always went no matter what he tried… even if they had conversations if he ran into her on the way to the store or on the street or whatnot.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Naruto's House)

The front door to the modest two-story home opened up as Naruto walked in and kicked off his shoes in the necessary space, 'Pssht, I put on my wall-climbing shoes and I didn't get past the front gate this time.' Naruto thought to himself, dropping his bag in the same area, "I'm home."

He was speaking to himself though. There wasn't anyone else there but him. As he walked through the foyer his eyes drifted to some of the pictures in the wall that he hadn't touched since Konohagakure had sent him on his first mission and the day he moved back into the house he and his parents shared until he was sent off to train on Homeland Island for years and years.

His mother and father. He just liked keeping those pictures up even though they weren't with him any longer. He was in a lot of them as a small child, and they all looked happy.

They did love him. They left him everything. Their house, all of their money which was quite enough for him to live off of until he graduated and went to college, if he wound up going, and more.

Going upstairs into his room he walked in and sat down on his bed, eyes flickering to several composition notebooks that were basically filled from cover to cover. Those were the things that made him feel fuzziest when he thought of what they'd left him.

They were filled with training ideas and programs that they were planning to put him through upon his return. It made him smile. There was so much meant to keep him busy even after they'd sent him off to college.

Because they believed in him. Even if no one else did, they did. They were willing to die for their duty as ninjas, and in their place he'd go on and be everything they were and more.

If Ryouzanpaku's masters kept on beating him and kicking him out he'd train harder. He didn't have to fight them, he just had to find a way to get past them and search for his objective.

He'd be the kage his father was supposed to become, and he'd do it the way they told him to. His way. Defeat wasn't going to make him back off and change who he was. He promised them he wouldn't. The last promise he'd made them in person.

_(Flashback – Seven Years Ago)_

_Naruto's day had been extremely strange. Actually, things had been rather strange for quite some time now._

_Ever since he'd first come to Homeland Island, his parents had made good on their promise to write him frequently. It almost bugged him nonstop how many letters he'd receive from them, asking him about any and everything. They told him that they knew of his grades and that they were mostly very good. Kushina did constantly get on him about improving on his science and math, even though she did like preening about the fact that he owned all of the culture classes with an iron fist._

_Minato didn't really like Naruto's little rivalry with the fellow top student in his age bracket in Uchiha Sasuke, but he did encourage Naruto that if he was going to compete he should kick his ass. Though that was probably something Kushina wrote in._

_They sent him packages and had even managed to send him a TV and a Playstation for him to occupy his time when he was by himself for his performance in his classes. It was a big hit with the other kids and got him some popularity._

_They always told him when they'd be visiting and always came to see him once in the summer, once in the winter, and once on his birthday. They never missed a beat._

_Which was what the problem was now._

_His birthday had been a week ago, and his parents kept writing that they were excited to go and visit him on October 10__th__. October 10__th__, October 10__th__, October 10__th__, in every letter he'd received from August to September._

_But at the start of September he stopped getting letters. Cold turkey, they just stopped coming in. He thought it might be because of storms, as boat was the only way for anything to get to and from the island, but then October 10__th__ came and went, and they didn't come._

_But they were probably busy. On top of being high-class ninjas, Kushina and Minato had real jobs too. Important jobs. Something probably just came up._

_So why did his heart feel like it was tugging downward in dread?_

_To add onto that, his teachers hadn't been addressing him normally the way they had before. Even Iruka who had been his favorite of the rotating instructors made him feel like something was off._

_A knock came at Naruto's door while he was just leaning on his windowsill, staring out at the ocean through the trees. He had a great view, "It's open."_

_Speaking of the devil, Iruka opened the door and popped his head in, looking around to make sure there weren't any other kids in Naruto's room before he went in and closed the door behind himself. He needed to tell him something that the others didn't have any business hearing before he did, "Hey Naruto… I need to tell you something. It's important, and it's about your parents."_

"_They're coming?" Naruto turned around so fast Iruka had to blink and make sure he'd seen him even move, "Or are they here?" His face lit up at the thought, which damn near crushed his heart to see._

_But he was a ninja. Naruto was a ninja. They all dealt with this kind of thing eventually. And he needed to know, "…They're not coming Naruto. Now or ever again." The shock and confusion on his face would shortly give way to complete horror, "Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato are both… dead. I'm sorry for your loss."_

_Iruka just stood there for the longest time watching the stone cold frozen expression on Naruto's face. It made him cringe at the sight of it. And then tears started rolling down his cheeks as he stared up at his teacher._

"…_They were dispatched on a mission, a very sensitive infiltration mission, and they didn't make it." Iruka explained to a petrified Naruto, seemingly frozen in time, "I don't want to be the one to tell you something like this Naruto, but they died doing what you're training to do now. We're proud of them and you should be too. I'm so sorry."_

_That was all he could repeat until he left the room and left Naruto alone._

_Once again Naruto cried, but this time sounds did come from his room. In the dead of night the sound of punches impacting off of a stone wall and soft uncontrolled sobbing emanated from his quarters._

_And from that day forward everything else went downhill too, whether he knew it or not._

* * *

**Well I'm going to go ahead and give this a try now. Not sure how it'll shake out, and I'm pretty sure I might confuse some readers for a bit, but I'm trying to have this all make sense without laying all of my cards on table right off the bat. Give me a bit of time to flesh out the entire situation.**

**I've wanted to take a run at something like this for a while, but I didn't know how I'd pull it off for the longest because I wanted to be different from what I've actually seen thus far in this department.**

**Like I said earlier, we'll see if this idea has legs as we go along.**

**Kenchi out.**


	2. When You're In

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. And it's a damn shame that I don't. If anyone knows about getting punched in the head it's got to be me… but that might also be why I can't draw to save my life and start my own artistic franchise.

_(Flashback – Four Years Prior)_

_This occurrence had been happening a lot for the last three years since the death of Naruto's parents. He would be held back after class to talk to one of his instructors. He hadn't been hovering around top dog status for years and he knew it, but he still trained his tail off._

_It didn't change anything for him though. He'd keep going. It was all he could do for his parents after they died before seeing just how great he could be. He'd have to shine so brightly they could see him from wherever they were._

_Today the instructor that kept him back was Iruka. The man was pretty much his favorite, but he still looked at Naruto with the same disappointed expression that the other instructors had done for a while now. He'd been the last to do so though, and he'd always been the one to try and converse with him like this. To try and help him._

"_Naruto." Iruka said in the empty forest courtyard that served as the physical training classroom for their age group, "Tell me how I can help you. You know I'm here to help." 'Tell me what you think I can do that'll bring you back.'_

_Oh come on. He wasn't that bad off at all, "Iruka-sensei… I don't know." Twelve-year old Naruto said with a shrug, "I mean, I am getting it. I'm passing everything. I'm passing everything well. Talk to one of the kids that aren't passing the tests. Hell, I'm top of the class in the culture stuff." _

_And it showed in his speech and the way he acted. He was great in that class. Naruto really was almost like a city kid._

_It wasn't about the technical tests though. When it came to the tests Naruto could be as golden as his hair. He got the gist of the lessons to pass. Understood enough of what was being taught, and could explain it well enough. _

_It wasn't a matter of drive because he had that also. He had it in spades. He wouldn't stop training at something until he could put it into use somehow. He understood the basics and even intermediate aspects of Ninjutsu._

_Understanding only went so far though._

_It was the practical application where he tanked, and no one knew why. It made no sense._

_He was so strange in the way he went about things. When it came time to put what he knew into action, something always went wrong. He just couldn't excel in the field. Today was a prime example. Students had been matched one-on-one, head-to-head, in separate areas of the island's woods to find and subdue the other. A search-and-destroy kind of affair. _

_Naruto had his opposition dead-to-rights, without them knowing where he was. He had him. It shouldn't even have turned into a head-up fight. And in an outright reversal of fortune he'd somehow let his opponent off the hook, revealed his location, and they wound up fighting directly until Iruka stepped in._

_Even his opponent for the day in Sasuke looked disappointed._

_All of that potential from before… and then what happened to Kushina and Minato before they'd taught the children how to deal with death._

"_Look." Naruto said, getting up off of the forested floor as he wiped his uniform off, "I know I muffed up today's exercise the way it was laid out. But there's more than one way to do this stuff, right?"_

"_Of course."_

"_So why can't I try to come up with my own way? You didn't even let me get started. You guys never let me get started." Naruto said with a bit of disgruntlement in his voice. He had a plan. If only Iruka'd given him the time to try and pull it off._

_Freestyling wasn't really a part of the curriculum though as Iruka tried to express, "There's a reason we're teaching you what we teach to begin with. You can't just fly off the cuff. We're making sure you understand the theory of what we're teaching."_

"_But I do!" Naruto replied, "It's just… nothing ever winds up looking the way it does in the lectures and demonstrations. And everyone in class knows the same stuff that I know, so… you know what I'm saying?" He didn't want to come in predictably. Sasuke was just as good in the classes as he was._

_Standing above the conversing student and teacher, three older ninja figures looked down with two of them shaking their heads at the course of the dialogue. Naruto's veering off-course had been a point of concern for quite some time. If something didn't change to properly shape that boy up soon, the last measure would need to be taken._

**Chapter 2: When You're In**

* * *

Fresh off of the defeat (once again, defeat was not a strong enough word) at Kousaka Shigure's hands, Naruto did not go to school in the morning when he woke up, instead going home to go back to the drawing board for the time being.

He might as well have gone to school for all of the ideas he'd come up with. He'd exhausted them all. He'd tried everything. Disguises, distractions, bait-and-switch tactics, waiting them out to see if all of them would ever go on vacation or something. He'd done everything short of going up to the front gate, knocking, and asking if he could go in to grab what he wanted.

At that he stopped and thought to himself for a long time before deciding that it would never work. Even if they were that nice, at this point they would basically render him unconscious on sight, or way worse depending on which Ryouzanpaku master caught him.

The furthest he ever made it inside of one of the three buildings on the property was the time that he just got fed up one day when he was fourteen. In broad daylight he jumped the wall and screamed at the top of his lungs while making a beeline straight for the secondary house where most of the other masters stayed and lived.

The thing about it was that he actually got inside, through the front room full of three surprised masters and got halfway down the first floor hallway before everything went black again and he woke up on a bus bench outside somewhere. Shock and awe approach.

So he thought, and thought. And pondered. And called Shikamaru for help but only got a lazy dismissal to let it go. So he pondered alone.

Then he trained.

The he ate.

Then he pondered again.

Then he exercised and showered.

Then he slept.

And he did the same thing the next day only using most of his morning where he didn't go to school again training.

Either way, he couldn't stay out of school for long. He was probably going to catch hell for missing two days already, but if that homeroom teacher of theirs tried to throw stuff at him like he did Kenichi when he showed up late that bald bastard was going to find a little present in his driver's seat and his car missing some important internal parts the next time he tried to start it.

The very next day he entered Koryou High School, Naruto walked the halls wondering where Kenichi was due to the fact that he could usually find where his friend was on his route to school and make it somewhere in front of him to wait for him. Today he didn't find him walking the normal route, thus he went ahead alone until he felt a presence set over his trusty, ever-present backpack.

"Nin~~~ja."

"A~~~lien." Naruto replied almost instinctively to the voice in his right ear.

"Oh come now. Why don't you just admit what I already know? Do you know what it would do to your popularity if people accepted you were a real life ninja?" The person continued to say, "You'd be a demigod to the otaku crowd and that's just for starters!"

Naruto immediately grabbed the figure behind him basically hissing what he was in his ear in a headlock, "That's ridiculous!" Naruto said in a loud voice as he and his pest were a temporary attraction in the hall, "Don't you have better things to do in the morning than going around accusing people of being ninjas!? Huh!?"

Barely human in appearance, Niijima Haruo was tall and spindly dark-haired bowl-cut teen with sharp fingernails and strange facial features including pointed ears, a lengthy face with a pointy nose, and beady eyes. He wore the same school uniform as most of the 'upstanding' male students in the school like Kenichi did and while Naruto was choking him his tongue was sputtering out, seeming to be long and forked.

Pulling into the headlock enough to get space to talk, the strange young man seemed to look at Naruto with a sense of knowing, "But I know it's the truth. You can deny it all you want to, but I know better." He'd already told everyone in school, and he'd even tried putting in the school paper that Uzumaki Naruto was a ninja, "The rubber soles of your sneakers are spiked!"

It was probably the only rumor he started that nobody believed, because Uzumaki Naruto was a loud, flashy kid that was easy to point out. Their expectations of a ninja Naruto did not make. He didn't walk like a ninja, act like a ninja, talk like a ninja, fight like a ninja, or fight period as far as anyone else knew, "They're athletic shoes! They're for traction!"

Niijima was relentless though, because he had the most accurate information on everyone in the school, especially the freshmen. Even on Naruto. He had almost everything on Naruto. Even the ninja thing. How the hell he got that info when Naruto made concerted efforts to _never_ fight in or anywhere around school he never figured out, but he always looked over his shoulder just in case.

And Naruto was the only person that nobody believed his intel and rumors about.

It was also another reason that he and Kenichi kept trying to find new places for lunch, one that Naruto didn't say out loud to Kenichi because it would link to his ninja thing. Niijima kept stirring up the beehive to get bullies to pick with him and Kenichi to provoke Naruto to slip up and fight someone where he could get concrete evidence so he could prove his accusations as correct.

"If you make me disappear without a trace that'll just prove me correct!" Niijima gloated, snaking his way out of Naruto's loosened grip once he let go enough, allowing him to fly down the hallway between students walking to their classes. His PDA was held in the air with his notes on Naruto all the while, "You know what you are and so do I!"

"Yeah, I sure do!" Naruto said in a loud and overbearing voice laced with sarcasm, pleased with himself for warding off the alien-boy again for another day, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto: Ninja! Look at my ninja-ness! All day! Every day! In the streets! On your roofs!"

And other than getting folks to look at him like he was a loon, nobody cared. Perfect. He might have just killed whatever little sex appeal he had left with the freshman class women with that display, but it was for the greater good.

The thing about it was that Naruto had never outright said that he wasn't a ninja, he just never confirmed it or when he did he did it facetiously. Instead he played up how ludicrous the idea was because really, it was a ludicrous thought. Who'd believe it even if it was true? And everyone's stereotypical depiction of a ninja was so set in stone, even adjusted for modern times, that nobody would ever believe him short of him busting out a handful of shuriken on the spot and hurling them at a target.

That was how he covered himself without lying… but that didn't make him being a ninja any less factual.

Now if he could get through the rest of the day without any surprises he'd be just fine, and he could get back to his pressing mission of trying to steal something important from inside of the Ryouzanpaku Dojo.

XxX

(Later that Day)

Naruto had long since come to realize that his luck was very hit or miss. When it was on, it was on, and there wasn't anything better. When he was missing he most definitely knew it, because the shots would just keep coming. Like right now.

Kenichi hadn't been in class by the time the first bell rang for homeroom. Odd, because he was a punctual guy. He did show up though, a few minutes late, and he'd brought someone along with him. A new student that transferred in a month late. Naruto hadn't been around to be introduced to the day before apparently when she first showed up due to his absence.

Fuurinji Miu. Goddamn it.

She noticed him immediately and her eyes lit up, but didn't push her luck with the miffed teacher that proceeded to make her and Kenichi stand outside for the duration of homeroom. Naruto then proceeded to make himself scarce for lunch until right when the bell rang for class to start up again. He would have done the exact same at the end of the day, but…

Hit or miss luck. You can be the judge.

"I didn't know you went here too ninja-kun!" A rather animated Miu in her school attire said as he she managed to lock onto him swiftly right before the last bell, and made it so that he couldn't disappear this time. It helped that Kenichi had slowed him down first by instantly calling out to Naruto and introducing them at the end of the day, "I wish you would have said so the day before though. We could have walked to school together after I woke you up."

"I didn't even go to that day."

"You shouldn't skip school."

"I didn't do it on purpose. The chick with the weapons knocked me out and left me there overnight."

"Heh, I see your point. But that means you skipped yesterday."

"So you met Kenichi twice on the way to school and ran into him again today?" Naruto said, recanting the series of events that Kenichi had told him before he headed off to Karate Club. Miu nodded in confirmation, "And now you're friends?" Another nod of her head and he had to laugh, "That is un-freaking-canny… that you would run into my best friend the day after one of the people that live with you kicked my ass."

At hearing that Naruto was Kenichi's best friend and vice-versa, a thought flittered into Miu's head as she moved in front of Naruto and started walking backwards in front of him, pushing her index fingers together nervously, "If you're friends with Kenichi does that mean that we're friends too?"

Naruto almost tripped over his own feet midstep at the rather innocent question, but she was completely serious, "Um." Eloquent. And that wasn't really the response she'd been looking for

No, don't do the watery eyes thing. No, don't quiver the lip either. It wasn't fair, she was cute! Stop it! He _had_ to say no! It wasn't her fault that he had to say it! He liked her, but he had to steal from her home! He couldn't rightly say they were friends before he robbed her. Then he'd never be able to do it and feel any sense of pride or accomplishment from it.

"…Yes, I think we are." Naruto eventually conceded to the pretty. He couldn't help it, "And I guess that means I have to actually introduce myself to you even though you heard my name in class already." Naruto extended his hand in a gesture of good will, "My name's Uzumaki Naruto, so you can stop just calling me 'ninja'."

"And now that we're friends you can stop calling me Ryouzanpaku-hime and start calling me Miu." Miu's expression switched to a rather accusational one, "Or are you going to keep doing it?"

"No I'll stop." Naruto said with a big grin. He just couldn't help it. She hated when he said that, which was why he kept doing it whenever they fought for years, "Why the hell do you want to be friends with me anyway? We've been fighting since middle school."

"Well I don't really have any." Miu admitted as she fell into step beside Naruto and walked with him, "At least until Kenichi-kun, but we're kind of friends too aren't we? I mean, we're pretty familiar with each other and we know how the other fights. It's either a rivalry or a friendship, but who said it can't be both?"

That was a cavalier way of looking at it. But it was right up his alley. Nothing was cut and dry. Nothing was straightforward. There were many ways that concepts like friendship and rivalry could be taken. So why not this way?

He needed more friends than Kenichi and Shikamaru anyway, because he wasn't entirely sure that he and Shikamaru were even friends. They worked together (or were supposed to), but they weren't really friends.

"I guess we are kind of friends." Naruto thought, rubbing the back of his head as he tried to put an appropriate spin on things, "I mean, you're the only Ryouzanpaku person that doesn't knock me out on sight, because you actually have to fight me first to pull it off. You're the only person aside from Kenichi that's ever even a little excited to see me, but that's probably because I'm breaking into your house most of the time when you see me."

Let it be known that Naruto never had any real friends either before Kenichi. On the Homeland Island, in Japan, period. None before him. Thus due to this, and what his main aim of the last four years had been, his definition of what comprised a friend was basically someone who he knew and who knew him decently well, that was not capable of killing him in under thirty seconds.

And because of where he came from and how he grew up, even that was sort of flexible.

Miu, Kenichi, and Shikamaru all fit that bill, even though the latter utterly despised it.

"Now, let's go find you a club since we're still here! What are you into?"

"Gymnastics. But what about you? Don't you have a club to get to, or to look for?"

"No… but we can deal with that any time, so come on."

XxX

(Later that Afternoon – Neighborhood Park)

There was definitely a bad luck streak going hard, because Kenichi had managed to catch it. Apparently, big dumb muscleheads only got a kick out beating him black and blue during Karate Club for so long, because now one guy in particular had somehow gotten him into a situation where he had to win a fight or he'd have to leave the club.

To make it worse, he probably wound up netting an opponent in the biggest, strongest, dumbest freshman in the club in Daimonji who had probably marked his calendar for that day next week just so he could have a valid reason to beat Kenichi into a hospital stay.

And Kenichi deemed that he needed to get strong fast. Hence why he called Naruto first thing after getting home later than Naruto and Miu did after he'd shown her to the Gymnastics Club, because he needed someone to oversee his training.

Not because he thought Naruto was any kind of fighter, but because he literally had no one else to call.

So after making the best game plan with Naruto sitting there and watching that he could, Kenichi and Naruto then set out to put it into action because Naruto pretty much did nothing but entertain Kenichi's little sister the entire time. The next few hours were then thoroughly wasted.

Naruto just stared at Kenichi clutch his hand in pain after punching a tree that they'd roped off once, 'I know I'm supposed to be keeping me being awesome under wraps and all, but there's got to be something I can do here. I can't let him get his ass kicked. I just can't.'

He had never sat and let Kenichi take a beating or get picked on when he was around. He had his ways to stop it from happening without blowing his self-imposed cover or in a pinch he'd transfer the heat onto himself and somehow handle it. But the thing was, he wasn't around him all the time.

Kenichi had to go into the hallway for being late, he had to go to the bathroom and to get water, they played pretty physical games in gym together, Kenichi had to walk home by himself at a certain point, and the worst one; Kenichi had Karate Club, where he had intentionally signed up, no, begged to join knowing full-well he was going to get the smack laid down on him day after day.

There was only so much Naruto could do without playing superhero, and as badass as that would have been he really couldn't do that. It was only Niijima that somehow knew he was a ninja, but if too many people knew it would make his work as a ninja that much harder.

Of course everyone in Ryouzanpaku already knew, and they were his current mission already, but he was thinking ahead! Past that mission once he finally got in there and took what he needed, if people knew he was a ninja it would make any other mission he'd eventually receive from Konohagakure that much harder.

"Dude, stop. I can't take it anymore." Naruto finally said, holding his temple after watching Kenichi throw the most piss-poor kick he'd ever seen anyone with full functioning motor skills throw, "Come on. This park is public. This is hard to watch." Girls on the sidewalk were walking past and he could hear them whispering to themselves and laughing about the training.

"It doesn't matter!" Kenichi said before throwing another kick that got him to yelp in pain, "Gah!"

"That…" Naruto started to say as he got up and walked over to him, "…Was the worst kick… ever… of all time. Why are we doing this in sight of the street? This is embarrassing."

"Hindsight!" Kenichi shouted before putting his foot gingerly back on the ground, "Now come on and help me Naruto-san. Take that backpack off and work out with me."

"I'm not taking the backpack off."

"What? Why?"

"Because I never take it off when I'm outside." Naruto said with a defensive sniff, "You know that. The only reason I take it off in school is because I can't fit into the seats with it on." It was one of his quirks… if only he knew.

"What's in there?" Kenichi asked, referring to the full bag. Nobody but Naruto ever touched it.

"School stuff." He wasn't lying. There was school stuff in there, amongst other things of potentially greater interest.

"Why's it so bulgy?" Kenichi continued to ask out of curiosity before he realized he was getting sidetracked, "Gah! I can't waste time like this! Daimonji's going to kill me, and I can't even land a punch on him!"

Going over to his panicking buddy, Naruto grabbed his shoulders and shook him once, "Look, Daimonji's a trash fighter. He's just bigger than everybody else."

The boy was a damn giant compared to other kids his age more normal in size like Naruto and Kenichi, so saying he was bigger was putting it a bit lightly, "He's a lot bigger than everybody else." The would-be Karate fighter said, "I think even if he gave me a free punch it wouldn't budge him."

"Okay, you're exactly right." Naruto admitted, giving Kenichi the one-up over his own attempt at being positive, "But listen, this is totally doable. Now where'd you get the idea to train like this?"

Kenichi hadn't heard Naruto talk so seriously in a while. A long while. So taken by this was he that he picked up a book he'd laid on the ground by the tree he'd padded with ropes without ever even looking away from his friend's intense blue eyes, "H-Here. In this book."

He got the motivation to fight from Miu. He got the training 'program' as it were from a book he'd bought a while back.

Taking the tome from Kenichi's hands, Naruto flipped through it before sticking his tongue out at it. He put it aside and took a deep breath before turning his attention back to the brown-haired boy, "That's not going to work." Kenichi's brown eyes widened in fright, "I don't know how we're going to do this, but if Karate Club is really that important to you we'll find a way."

But as far as Kenichi knew, neither of them knew the first thing about Karate. He had to win against a beast like Daimonji with absolutely no combat experience in a match contested under standard Karate rules, "Naruto that sounds really good, but… I don't think even if they'd taught me the basics before this happened I'd have a chance. But I've got to fight. I can't back down and prove that I'm just as weak as everyone always says."

This was the part of Kenichi that Naruto found was his greatest quality. For better or for worse, he stuck to his guns, kind of like him only way more noble about it. Most of the time it wasn't smart, but a lot of what Naruto did never qualified as rocket science either.

He wanted to help. And there was only one thing he could do. He had to tiptoe through the minefield to give his pal a shot at getting closer to his goal. No one helped him in his bid to be the best ninja he could be, and he wasn't about to do the same thing to someone that really didn't deserve to be treated the way he was.

As Kenichi thought about how screwed he was, he saw Naruto having an inner war with himself before one side finally won and he held out his hand for Kenichi to hand something over, "Give me your cell phone."

"Why?" Kenichi asked tentatively.

Naruto just stared at him for several seconds until Kenichi did as he asked. Only then did he give the vaguest answer in the gravest tone Kenichi had ever heard from him, "Because I only know one person that can help you right now. And I am not calling her house with my phone. It's one of the last two advantages I have left over them, and I'm not losing them that easily."

There was so much confusing about what Naruto had just said, Kenichi didn't know which question to ask first. He had to wait though, because Naruto was on the phone, dialing a number that Kenichi had never seen before. The area code said it was local though.

"Uh…" The conversation must have been happening, "Hello, this is… a friend of Miu's. Can you get her for me?" He was calling Miu? Seriously? Wait, that was brilliant! That girl was a destroyer of men from what he'd seen, "Yes, she made friends today." A pause, "There's a _very_ good reason my voice sounds familiar. You should ask her about that after she gets off the phone." One more pause, "You'll find out why I sound dodgy after I talk to Miu. Can you go get her please?"

'Who the hell is he talking to?' Kenichi thought to himself. He wasn't sure but… was he nervous? 'Naruto's nervous? Naruto's never nervous about anything!' Huge people have threatened to kick their tails to his face, grabbed him and everything, and Naruto had never acted anything like this before. Those were nerves.

"Miu-chan! Yes, it's Naruto." He said with a lot more confidence before a pause came, "Oh, yeah I've known it for a while. The phone book. You guys are in there. Messed up right?" Pause, "Anyway, I need your help tomorrow after your club lets out? Can you pop by and listen for a bit?"

So many questions. Why did it seem like they didn't just meet all of several hours ago?

XxX

(The Next Day – Kenichi's Neighborhood Park)

"Alright, I'm here to help!" Miu said, riding up to where Naruto and Kenichi were waiting on her bike. Instead of her school clothes, she wore a purple leotard underneath a yellow and green sweater as well as white tennis shoes, "But I didn't know you even had Ryouzanpaku's number for that long Naruto-kun."

"You guys really aren't that hard to find." Naruto defended with a shrug, "At all. Trust me. That was Kenichi's number by the way. You should save that." Kenichi gave Naruto a mortified look at being put on the spot like that in front of such a pretty girl that they'd just met the other day.

"Already did." Miu smiled at him before looking over to Kenichi who was still staring at the shapely girl in a bit of awe. Miu without glasses and with her hair out was even cuter than with them. He wondered why Naruto wasn't affected by all of the pretty… or how he got her number after he'd just introduced them at the last school bell.

As the beautiful martial artist looked over at Kenichi she noticed that he was dressed in workout clothing. As he noticed her scrutinizing him, Kenichi realized that he was on and quickly bowed once to her, "Miu-san, I need help to take on a member of the Karate Club! Please help me! I'll do whatever you need me to!"

The volume and conviction with which Kenichi spoke alarmed her, but she quickly recovered and ran a hand through her hair to push some of it behind her ear. She could see that he was shutting his eyes tightly as he stayed in his bow, seemingly expecting the worst, 'It seems like he's used to rejection in situations like this.' She thought to herself before looking over at Naruto who just gestured to Kenichi in turn.

With a finger placed under his chin she stood Kenichi back up straight and his heart almost stopped at how wonderful her smile was and how close she was to him, "If you ask me like that there's no way I can turn you down. We're friends right? But…" She then turned to look at Naruto who was now somehow standing ten feet farther away than he had been a split-second ago without looking like he'd ever moved, "Why didn't you just ask Naruto-kun to help?"

Kenichi blinked blankly before turning to Naruto who was now even farther away somehow, "But… why would I ask Naruto-san to teach me how to fight?"

"You don't know?" Miu said in disbelief. Weren't they best friends? If that were the case he should have definitely known why, "Because he's a-."

"Ahem! Ah-ah-ahem!" Naruto feigned loud, violent coughing as he walked back over to the pair and made the universal sign for 'cut it out' to Miu, "Anyway! Miu-chan here is _really_ good, as you probably know by now." Kenichi nodded rapidly. He'd seen Miu beat up adult gangsters with weapons in seconds. She'd even tossed him over her back twice, "So listen to whatever she says and you will be fine. I promise, dattebayo."

Resolved by his best friend's relief in their brand-new friend, Kenichi turned back to Miu with a determined look in his eyes, "I'm ready. If we can I'd like to start right now."

She liked that look and had no problems with getting started now since he seemed to be dressed and prepared already, "Okay, well I didn't know we'd be doing this, and I actually planned to run to the store to get things for dinner while I was out, but the others can wait for a little while. This is important! Now-." With that she pointed directly at Naruto, "Attack Naruto-kun. Don't hold back."

Kenichi looked appalled at the thought of wailing on his best friend while Naruto just let out an aggravated groan and promptly clammed up. Miu was trying to get him to tell Kenichi what she already knew after she figured out that he was hiding it from him. But he wanted to help his friend that had always been a good guy to him, and she knew that ninja or not Naruto was a good person too from previous interactions.

Eventually the damn would break. All she had to do was give him a little look. Oh, he was cracking. His face was twisting up all different kinds of ways. Almost there.

"Fine! Alright! I give up! God apparently wants this to happen, so I guess it's finally happening! If we're doing this we're not doing by the street though, _Kenichi_!" Naruto added pointedly as they were still right by the tree he'd padded with rope the previous day, "…Using the tree by the road…"

Boom. Got him.

With Naruto's loud reluctant agreement to the terms, Kenichi woke up again, "I won't attack Naruto-san!"

"It's fine." Miu assured him with a wave to try and shoo him in Naruto's direction while said blond stood impatiently tapping his foot. If this was going to go down he just wanted to get it over with, "He's okay with it."

"I'm not really okay with it." Naruto tacked on, just to be clear, "I'm really pissed off by it actually. But, you're my buddy, and she needs to see where you stand since just telling her that you suck isn't good enough." No, she needed to see the level of his suck to see just what she had to build up from the ground level with.

"He won't even take his backpack off!" Kenichi argued in return. He didn't look tough or muscular at all! Naruto never even put up his fists in front of him, and he was going to take a punch?

"Naruto-kun doesn't need to take his backpack off." Miu said in her own defense, completely confident in what she was saying. He never took his backpack off, even when she'd seen him outside of his attempts on Ryouzanpaku.

"She's right." Naruto agreed much to Kenichi's surprise, "I really don't. Just do it. Pretend I'm Daimonji." Kenichi then shook in fear at the thought of fighting said brute, "Ah, okay. Pretend I'm…" Who did Kenichi hate enough to not care if he beat them to a pulp and weak enough not to scare him at the thought of standing up to him? Oh, there was always that guy, "Okay, I'm Niijima. Go."

It worked like a charm.

Kenichi tightened his fists and faced his friend, "Just hit him?"

"Just hit him. One time and we'll stop." Miu confirmed, "He won't hit you back. Naruto-kun, don't dodge like normal please." He'd never catch up if he did.

"Got it." With that, Naruto just stood up normally and beckoned Kenichi forward, giving one more push to make sure he didn't back out of attacking, "Come on 'Weak Leg' Kenichi. Hit me. Best shot." It hurt him to say that to him, but he needed him motivated to get him back. This was to help him.

And with that Kenichi ran forward with his fist cocked. The second he let it go, Naruto tilted his own wrist with four of fingers fully extended to push Kenichi's fist down while stepping around him, and with Kenichi's momentum the rest of his body followed, forcing him to faceplant into the dirt.

"Love the intensity." Naruto said, walking around to Kenichi's slowly back as he got up, spitting mounds of earth from his mouth, "Love the passion. Hated everything else about that punch. Try again."

'What the hell?' Kenichi thought to himself as he got back up to find that Naruto was standing in another casual stance, leaning against a nearby tree, "How did you do that? I fell down and all you did was move."

"It's not that big a deal, you telegraphed the punch!" Naruto shouted back at him with a baring of his canines, "Throwing haymakers is for losers! Do it again!"

This time letting out a yell, Kenichi ran at Naruto but didn't throw all he had behind one shot. As a matter of fact he stopped short, knowing that Naruto would just sidestep him again. From arm's length he winged a punch, but Naruto moved past his fist and to his side again.

Miu paid attention the entire time, watching Kenichi miss every shot.

Again, and again, and again.

Until Kenichi was sucking wind on his hands and knees. And Naruto sat on his back, "How did you do that?"

"Because I'm awesome." Naruto said as if he were saying the sky was blue before miming an orb around his body with his hands, "For future warning, the onslaught of my awesome may cause: serious injury, inability to maintain self-respect, feelings of inferiority, jealous delusions, sudden decrease in confidence, high risk of humiliation, dignity dysfunction, trouble performing, and self-worth deficiency."

"Okay, I've seen enough." Miu said with a strained smile. That was bad. That was really, really bad. She was _not_ a master so she had to be really careful with what she tried to give him, "I don't know what to say." But she could still help him, "Kenichi, the first thing we need to work on is your defense."

If that was how he attacked he might as well not learn how to attack at all yet. This was better for him. The last thing that Kenichi needed to do was punch at anyone right now.

"Defense? But how can I beat Daimonji with just defense?" Kenichi said to himself before remembering Miu throwing him just from bumping into him from behind, and from Naruto getting him on his hands and knees without hitting him once after just five minutes.

And then he thought of watching Daimonji beat the crap out of things with his huge gorilla arms until they broke while he knew he was cleaning the room and watching.

"Teach me." Kenichi decided without another thought to the contrary. This merciful angel was going to give him what he needed to avoid that bloody fate and he would take it, "Teach me whatever you want. I'm a blank canvas."

"Damn straight." Naruto said in agreement, "But look at it like this; from here you can't go anywhere but up."

"Get off me Naruto-san!"

"Let's just worry about teaching you the technique for now okay?" Diffusing the situation, Miu gave a strained smile and pulled Naruto off of Kenichi's back to let the unassuming aspiring fighter up from the ground, "It's different from how Naruto-kun evades. These are multiple steps in one movement with a purpose. Here, let me show you."

And so Miu would give Kenichi the steps he needed to learn how to not get punched by gigantic hulking brutes. The same steps he practiced in every moment he could spare for the next week.

XxX

_(Flashback – Four Years Ago)_

_Naruto's stomach was doing backflips. He and several other kids, some older, some younger, had been placed on one of the outgoing boats from Homeland Island. According to the kage themselves by a majority decision they were seen as those that needed to be dispatched into the world early. The required age for being sent out as an official ninja of Konohagakure was fifteen._

_Naruto and his partner for the job in one Nara Shikamaru were twelve._

_They were to be given missions and sent out to the closest place possible for them to begin working toward their assignments. They had done it._

_It came as a huge shock. After hearing what Iruka, maybe it had been the man trying to make sure that he was ready for this big moment. And none of the teachers had ever liked Shikamaru's drive or his practical performance. Nothing. But he was his partner for this and they were supposed to have each others' backs._

_The place where he and Shikamaru were to be sent was Japan. From there they would be let off to handle the mission any way they could. For now they were both on a small boat dispatched from the larger one that had taken all of the kids away from the island._

_Both were blindfolded, and they had been blindfolded as they were put on the boats and taken away from the island at first. They weren't allowed to know where the island was before they became jounin._

"_Hey." Blindfolded Naruto said, reaching out for his fellow traveler sitting next to him equally blinded, "Shikamaru. Are you scared?"_

"_Yeah." Shikamaru admitted, fingers drumming in his lap as the boat rocked from the waves, "I'd feel better if I could see but… I'll be fine. I'm ready."_

"_Me too. We're in this together now. Let's knock this out so we can get more done."_

"_Eh… we don't have to start right away do we? And just how much time between missions do we get?_

_Both boys were silenced by a sharp whistle from the ninja steering the boat, "Alright listen up. Your mission is to find a stockpile of the world's rarest swords. We have a lead on where they are, but you two will need to do the rest of the legwork and somehow obtain them. With those swords we can sell them back and make a fortune, or outfit our most deserving ninjas with them if we so see fit. They are the finest weapons in the world, make no mistake. And the crafter is dead, so these are the only way we can obtain them. Anyone that holds something created by those that know the secrets of steel will never see a better tool. Begin your search at a place known as Ryouzanpaku."_

_With that he ripped the hoods off of the two boys heads and pushed them off of the boat into the water as he circled around and went back to the ship they had left from before they could resurface. He had the kindness about him to shove their belongings off with them on a floating raft, but other than that he didn't seem to care._

"_Good luck!" The ninja shouted, not even turning around to look at them as both boys floated on the surface of the water._

_Both Naruto and Shikamaru sputtered for a bit, spitting water around and getting their breath, "Bastard!" Naruto shouted, slapping his hand across the top of the water, "You could have said something first! We couldn't see!"_

_Shikamaru shared the same sentiment, but realized that in that whole briefing they were never told about how they could turn in their mission results. Or how to even contact anyone. Or where they were._

_But there was land in clear sight, and both grabbed their raft of belongings to begin the swim to shore._

_(End Flashback)_

"Naruto-kun." Miu said to a sleeping Naruto that she had found in their classroom a few minutes after class had let out.

He'd slept through most of the last class with his face in an upright book to try and hide it. The bell had rang and she'd gone to change into her leotard for Gymnastics Club while Kenichi went to prepare for his fight, but eventually she left to go see how Kenichi was faring.

Passing back around the classroom Miu had found Naruto still slumbering with his face in a book like before, "Wake up."

She reached out to poke at him the way she had when she'd run across him on the rooftop last week, but before her finger got close, Naruto's eyes shot open and his hand immediately reached down for his backpack on the floor. He stopped moving entirely when he realized who was around him and that he had just been dreaming of the day he first wound up in Japan.

His body went slack before he straightened and sat up in his desk chair, "Oh. Hey, shouldn't you be in your club like Kenichi is?" Today was the day that he had his match with Daimonji wasn't it? Damn, why'd he fall asleep? He'd meant to catch Kenichi after the bell and give him three movies worth of motivational speeches on the way to his club room.

"I snuck out to go find his club room and see his fight." Miu said as Naruto yawned and wiped the sleep for his eyes, "Did you not sleep last night?" She really was a bit concerned. He looked terrible.

"No, not really." Naruto said dully, idly noticing that she was wearing a gymnast leotard way skimpier than the one she usually fought him in as he stuffed his decoy book back into his bag, "I stayed over Kenichi's until it was late to make sure he had those steps of yours down, and then since I was still out anyway I went to scout your house again in case something changed."

That was a very creepy thing to say to a girl, but Miu was used to Naruto enough to know that he meant that in the way that he was going to try and break in again at some point. It was eerie how accepting to that fact she was. Getting beaten to a pulp by her grandfather and the other masters never seemed to deter him.

Speaking of Kenichi, "How is Kenichi's training going by the way?" She'd shown up every day to help him for stretches of time to assist him in getting the moves down. It had been rough going but he started getting it, and it was only a matter of making it something he could pull up on command.

"He keeps on practicing way after you leave." Naruto said, picking up his backpack from the ground as he stood and slung it over his shoulders with a solid thump against his back, "I've been trying to help, but I don't know your style in-depth. I just remember what it's supposed to look like from fighting you so I know if he's moving right."

The guy was a machine. He just didn't stop. It was actually really impressive how dedicated to winning this thing he was. Kenichi seemed like an entirely different man from the way he was when they'd been in middle school, or when he'd first come to high school.

"Can he do it? Win today?" Miu asked before she started to rattle off concernedly, "I mean, a week wasn't enough time to teach him anything past the steps themselves! Moving out of the way is just fine, but can he do anything after that?"

"I… don't know." Naruto said, but he couldn't think of anything. Nothing short of an actual technique was going to allow him to defeat Daimonji, and he didn't have any. His punch was limp-wristed and he kicked like a toddler.

"How could you never teach him anything? Even how to punch or kick?"

"It's forbidden for a-." Naruto stopped and went silent for long enough to ensure that no one else was around and listening before continuing, "-Ninja to teach techniques to anyone outside of the clan. It's the second-worst taboo we have." Naruto stated, knowing most of the rules and taboos of his culture like the back of his hand, "The only time anyone outside of the clan can start in Ninjutsu is the age of six, and the only place a ninja-in-training can learn is in our Homeland. I can't teach him."

Even if he was qualified to teach, and he wasn't, Kenichi's body wasn't even developed correctly for the style of fighting he used. It took way too much stamina to pull off if you weren't prepared. They had to train their bodies for two years and be content with just punching before anyone even taught them how to kick correctly.

Well if it was a part of his culture, Miu couldn't say anything about that. And from how he defended himself verbally he clearly really believed in it and the merits for it. Every aspect of martial arts was different.

Besides, you know how I fight." Miu nodded, remembering quite clearly Naruto's rather eccentric methods of combat, direct and otherwise, "He's into the glorious hero stuff like Karate! He'd never want to learn Ninjutsu. It's based on cheating and doing anything to win. And with the way I use it? He'd hate it! The second he finds out how I really fight, he's gonna throw a fit!"

"Is that why you never told him you were a-." Miu stopped talking enough to look around and make sure no one was spying on them either before lowering her voice to a whisper the way Naruto did earlier, "-Ninja?"

"It's one of the reasons." Naruto said with a grateful smile since she at least humored his rampant paranoia, "So, you wanna go see the fight?"

Miu spiritedly bolted to the window inside of the classroom and opened it up before climbing outside, "Yes, let's go!" She didn't even wait for him to catch up before choosing to travel oddly along the rooftop.

Naruto shifted his backpack on his shoulders and shut the door to the classroom before ambling over to the window. He'd follow, but he wasn't excited about it, "She's lucky I know that I can go that way and not be seen or I'd have gone around..."

Seriously, she wanted to keep from standing out and she did things like that without thinking about them. She'd also been raised with her martial art as the primary, similar to him, but still, he could see why being normal was a class for ninja children. It was only him that could really see her, but still.

Anyway he didn't have a club himself yet so there wasn't anywhere he had to be. Technically he could have walked right in the front door of Karate Club and watched. Oh well. What was the fun in being a ninja if he didn't abuse his training every now and then? He worked hard for it, and doing something with it other than getting flayed alive breaking into Ryouzanpaku wasn't a bad thing.

XxX

(With Kenichi – Elsewhere in the School – Karate Club Room)

The rules of Kenichi's Karate match with Daimonji were fairly simple. Both would start in ready positions and would be told to go until one was knocked down or they were otherwise forced to reset. According to the finality of the rules that the loser had to get kicked out, the only way this was allowed to end was when one surrendered or was otherwise incapacitated under the rules of the club.

Aside from two missteps earlier in the fight, Kenichi hadn't been touched no matter how many times his gigantic foe tried to knock his block off.

Standing in a white dougi with a petrified look on his face, Kenichi was breathing slightly heavily at having to fight for as long as he'd been going for. But compared to his opponent who was wearing the same Karate Club equipment in the dougi who was pouring sweat.

Like they'd been saying all week, Daimonji was a towering, broad, muscular man with short dark hair. He looked more like a bodybuilder than a practitioner of Karate, as he had even worn his gi with one arm out of his sleeve to show off his muscles.

"You're fucking annoying!" Daimonji bellowed at Kenichi as they stood in their stances again. Well he stood in a stance. Kenichi's wasn't so much a ready stance as a somewhat instinctive defensive posture with his hands up enough to deter getting hit, "All you're doing is fucking running away!"

'Because I can't hit you and hurt you!' Kenichi shouted in his head. He'd tried. He'd dodged the way Miu had showed him and had tried to punch his body twice since that was all he could reach. Nothing happened but him getting kicked across the room both times.

At this point he was just prolonging the inevitable. He had to be able to do something offensive in order to win, but for all of Kenichi's own strength he could hit Daimonji all day long the way he was doing and it'd be like a fly swatter hitting a stump.

Even so he'd seemingly stunned the other meatheads in the club who were all watching what they thought would be a slaughter. He'd been avoiding attack after attack for seven minutes straight.

One of the 3rd year upperclassmen, a man almost as big as Daimonji with a sharp face and a close buzzcut refereed the bout and even he was stunned, 'Where'd this loser learn to move like that from?' "Begin!"

"Dodge all you want but if you punch like a bitch you'll never win!" Daimonji roared as he hurled another punch with everything he had Kenichi's way, nothing but the worst intentions in mind, 'I'll kill this punk!'

Kenichi could see red bleeding into the whites of Daimonji's eyes and so scared of the forthcoming force he'd missed his normal timing for Miu's steps. Trying to recover himself, Kenichi went through the steps, moving his toes inward and then moving them outward while sliding his body forward in a rotation to the right to move through and to the side of the punch, but since he'd started later than usual his left foot lingered and it tripped up Daimonji, sending him falling face-first to the floor.

While the other club members laughed and started making fun of Daimonji for tripping up so casually, Kenichi's mind was racing. Reading so many books made him pretty good at analyzing the things that happened around him.

'I did that. I actually did that! But all I did was keep my leg out and change his force-!'

That was it. That was how Miu had always been in prime position to knock him head-over-heels, even though she had never put any force behind her arms after she'd showed him what the technique was capable after he'd dodged her. He was waiting to learn the attack part, the striking part, but there wasn't really one.

Admittedly he'd screwed the pooch just now against Daimonji and all that had happened was that the musclehead tripped over his leg. But he knew how his body was _supposed_ to go after seeing the steps, and he could break down from the positions he'd been in against Miu when she'd demonstrated and the way she moved what he had to try.

Holding his nose as he got up, Daimonji shoved one of the nearby first-year students out of the way, glaring murderously at Kenichi, "I'll slaughter you!" He yelled as he charged forward.

And while he was still scared, Kenichi figured for the most part what to do. Daimonji tried to remove his head from his shoulders with another punch again, but this time Kenichi took his steps and when he moved himself in position, past Daimonji whose momentum was still taking him forward, he snaked his arm up underneath Daimonji's punching arm and hit him right under the chin.

His adversary dropped like a brick and didn't get back up.

"What? He attacked?"

"That kid just won?"

"Bring some water! He's out cold!"

"I… won?" Kenichi asked no one in particular as everyone was trying to guide Daimonji back to the conscious world, "…Whoa."

XxX

Outside, Miu sat up on the elevated sill of the window looking into the club room, hands clasped together, pleased by Kenichi's resounding victory, "He did it! That was the real point of the Kouho Haiho (Stepping Method)!"

On the other hand, Naruto had dropped from the same spot and landed on the ground. Instead of quiet celebration of his friend's victory the way Miu did, Naruto was jogging around to find a door to get inside with both of his hands in the air, "Oh yeah! That's my bud! Take a musclebound man and drop his face in the san-…err, mat! That didn't rhyme, but I don't care because Kenichi won a fight without throwing a punch!"

Admittedly, Miu was ecstatic at seeing such a good-natured friend like Kenichi come through. It was a good feeling, taking pride in the people you found yourself caring for, like a sweltering flutter in her chest. So this was what being friends with others her age felt like.

She really liked it.

XxX

Back inside, a bucket of water was thrown onto Daimonji's face, getting him to sit up and sputter until he locked eyes with Kenichi who was still frozen in the posture that he'd hit him with.

Instead of getting up and storming over to belt him in the face, he nervously grinned and looked around at his fellow club members before saying probably the worst thing anyone that called themselves a man and a fighter could say after taking a resounding KTFO, "…That was nothing! That doesn't count!"

Any respect he had left after getting the stretcher job from Shirahama Kenichi was lost right then and there with his clubmates, "Coward… didn't the loser agree to quit the club?"

"But that didn't count! That wasn't even an attack!" Daimonji defended. He looked like he was just short of running away in tears if he really had to leave, "I don't want to quit this club!"

"Then why'd you make the rule?"

Hearing 'rules' triggered a thought in Kenichi's head and the modest young man interjected with a sheepish smile, "Oh, that's right. I completely forgot about the rule involving illegal techniques in matches. That wasn't a Karate technique, so I'm disqualified right?"

Was he serious? No one else in the entire room cared about that. He'd just put down the biggest kid in his entire freshman class, bigger than most of the upperclassmen in school, and he was concerned with the way in which he had gone about it?

Even so, Daimonji had a look of hope in his eyes but didn't dare spout off and lose even more face than before.

The room was dead silent until loud footsteps could be heard clopping down the hall and the door was finally kicked open with a yellow shock of spiky hair jetting through and walking through the forest of club members, "That's right! All that buffness for no reason! Kenichi, what are you doing? Put your hands up bud, you won, dattebayo!"

"Actually Naruto-san, I technically lost."

XxX

(That Evening)

Naruto had a rather irritated sneer on his face as he stomped away from the school down the street, hands holding tightly onto the straps of his backpack, eyes straight ahead and not even bothering to look behind him, "I can't believe this crap…" He groused to himself, even though the people desperately following him could hear it too.

This was supposed to be a victory stroll home where Naruto could preen like a peacock at his friend's first taste of success. That did not wind up being the case.

"Naruto-san it was an infringement in the rules!" Kenichi tried to say, "I lost! It's what's fair!"

"Yeah it's real fair." Naruto said, still not turning around, "You know what's not fair though? That I spent the last entire week, even all day Sunday, helping your ass get those steps down and battle ready, and when you won against all odds you coughed up the win!" He turned around and started pulling at the goggles around his forehead, "I lost a week! A week I could have been using to trai-!"

"To what?" Kenichi asked, realizing that Naruto cut himself off in the middle of his own tirade, "What else were you going to do? And come to think of it now that I've got a second to focus on something else other than my impending demise, do you two know each other? Before I introduced you I mean?"

He was rather suspicious because Naruto had been acting weird. Weirder than normal even for him, ever since he'd met Miu. And then there was him knowing her home phone number by heart, and how Miu had complete faith in Naruto being able to safely be Kenichi's target for practice without being at risk himself.

"No/Yes." Naruto and Miu said respectively before the former turned around to raise an eyebrow and the latter pouted at him with her hands on her hips, "Fine. Yes." Naruto amended, not wanting to piss her off for no reason, "We know each other pretty well actually. She's always been a good girl." That got her to beam over at him once again with a smile that he returned a bit diffidently.

Kenichi's suspicious alarms started going off and he decided to prod a bit further, "…So how well are we talking here?" Because he had her number, and then he had a lot of trouble in calling it when he did, and he wouldn't even use his own phone to do it. His conclusion gave him a deep dread, "Ex-boyfriend and girlfriend?"

It fit. It fit scarily well actually.

It would explain why Naruto never let him follow him after school. And for years there would be times once every few months when Naruto would show up to school covered in bumps, bruises, and bandages.

Then there was the fact that Naruto was usually averse getting into fights. He'd also been scared to even dial her number that he knew by heart. And he was pretty good at dodging, to the extent that Miu didn't think for a second that Naruto would get hit.

So in Kenichi's overactive worst-case scenario mind that had been shaped by reading books of all types of genres and constant bullying for his entire life it boiled down to Naruto being Miu's ex. Since she was so knowledgeable about and good at fighting he wound up training with her time to time, enough to pick up some evasive skill, but she kicked his ass so badly that he wound up in school the next day still nursing his wounds, eventually leading them to break up. It explained everything.

It also explained why Naruto was apparently immune to the allure of her sexy, which was the weirdest part since Naruto was as red-blooded as anyone else in existence.

And clearly she had been the one to break up with him since she didn't seem to share the same apprehension to his presence that he had for hers. He seemed jittery at times around her, like he was wired on too much green tea or iced coffee.

Both Naruto and Miu's cheeks went red at Kenichi's assumption before Naruto stood there and thought about it. Yes, Miu was absolutely gorgeous to a degree that it could at times be maddening, but Fuurinji Hayato tore him limb-from-limb for catching Miu in harmless traps to get her out of the way. What the hell would that man do if Naruto thought he had a chance and tried to date her?

It was so nerve-wracking a thought he started laughing. Laughing and shaking, "Haha… no. Not that I wouldn't, not saying that. Just, ha, no… you're so far off it's just… no." He didn't know what else to say. Miu didn't say anything at all. She just shook her head no, eyes averted to the ground as she wiped her glasses on her blazer.

Well this was awkward. A triangle of discomfiture.

"…" Naruto just looked between Miu and Kenichi before turning an about face and walking off for home, "…So are we all agreed that this never happened?" That was pretty much the cue to go home.

Kenichi quickly tried to follow as he still wanted to talk about some things, but when saw Naruto turn a corner he sprinted to the end of the block and saw that once again he was already gone, "How does he do that?" He asked before turning back to Miu who had been walking along contently at her own pace, "How does he do that?"

Miu's eyes were filled with interest and a bit of mischief as she set a hand on Kenichi's shoulder from behind, "Don't worry Kenichi! You should be happy! You were wonderful today!" What a wonderful smile. Did she even realize how absolutely beautiful she was?

Ah, and that made everything all worth it. The entire week of repetition and humiliation, and hard work, and constant fear of his fate that day was over, and he had been able to prove that he wasn't as weak as everyone thought.

So now everything in school should have been safe and reasonable, with no one trying to bully or pick fights with him again.

That was how these things worked wasn't it?

* * *

**And that's chapter two. It's time for me to take this and have a blast with it. I'm feeling really good right now. As good as I can feel in 2013, which isn't as close to how good I felt back in 1996, but hey I was a happy 5-year old back in the day.**

**So in this story for clarity's sake in case I didn't make it clear enough, Naruto and Shikamaru are washouts by the standards that they were meant to be held to in Konohagakure. They both have several fatal flaws each that made them unfit as archetypal ninjas.**

**That'll be the vital point of the storyline once things get established, because it really will grow in importance.**

**Fun's just starting, so I hope I see you all around next time.**

**Kenchi out.**


	3. Dancing With Masters

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Get your accusational finger out of my face! I never said it! I never said it at all! Libel and slander depending on whether you wrote it or said it.

_(Flashback – Four Years Ago – Outside of Ryouzanpaku)_

_After finding out that they were in Japan, twelve-year old Naruto and Shikamaru started gathering information on that one word that the ninja had told them to look into before shoving them off the boat and making them swim to shore._

_It took all of six hours, mostly to find the nearest library with open computers, and they found that Ryouzanpaku was a place in the town that had been Naruto's very close to him parents' home back before he had gone to Homeland Island to train. And they had left much behind for him. Just as a thing, he looked around for a bank at Shikamaru's behest, just in case, and found that they had left him a decent amount of money to grow up with and the house that they owned._

_That had been the place where he and Shikamaru had stayed while preparing to break into Ryouzanpaku so that they could steal a significant stash of the greatest weapons in the world. He felt great about it. Like it was a sign that his parents were watching over him and knew that he would rock that mission and begin his career with a bang._

_Both Naruto and Shikamaru stood in front of the towering front gate that marked the exterior of the strongest fighters in the entire world. Masters of their martial arts. The huge sign out front that said Ryouzanpaku Dojo was no false advertising. It was sunset, and Shikamaru had come up with the time of approach for the mission._

_They did it during sunset instead of at night so that the sun would be at their backs from their point of infiltration. This would allow them the light to easily match what they picked up from Google Maps on the layout of the facility to what they saw on the ground. Shikamaru was smart. It was all his idea, and here Naruto thought that Shikamaru had always sucked at their culture classes where they learned about things like the internet._

_But he was rock-solid. He'd done his homework. He'd found out everything that he could and made plan after plan, some that Naruto understood the basis of, many more that he did not. He didn't know that the boy had it in him. In the classes on the island he never showed any of that at all. There was obviously a reason he was out there with him though, even if he was so horribly pessimistic._

_And now they had to go out and get the job done._

"_You ready?" Naruto asked, fingers twitching nervously. This was it. His first mission, "In and out. Find those swords and get the hell out of here."_

"_Yeah." Shikamaru replied. He'd had an uneasy feeling about this whole thing since the second they made it to shore, and the more he learned the deeper his heart sank into his stomach. They weren't supposed to be able to pull this off, "There are master-class fighters in there Naruto. Guys stronger than jounin."_

"_We're not fighting them, we're sneaking past them." Naruto said, beginning to move with Shikamaru to the appropriate side of the walls so that they could begin getting in, "Yeah, it'll be hard, but it's nothing we can't do. They took us out and gave us this mission for a reason Shika. Have some faith."_

_Shikamaru buttoned his lip and nodded, willing to try and go through with the mission, but he wished he had as much confidence as Naruto who was the first to poke his head over the wall to get a peek at the grounds. Three buildings, all in a traditional Japanese style just like the satellite shot said. One long one-story building, and two other two-story dwellings._

_The land was fairly pretty, and by the inside walls there were plenty of shrubs and trees for he and Shikamaru to use for hiding places._

"_I'm going first. Wait a second after I do." Naruto said, climbing the rest of the way over and landing on the other side, concealed from view by the shrubs. Waiting a moment to make sure there was no motion, Naruto then reached his hand up and gestured for Shikamaru who had been peeking over too to come on down._

_He started to bend his knees for the drop off of the fifteen foot wall to Naruto's similar spot when right as he did so and landed behind the shrubs the doors to one of the dwellings opened up and out came a girl that looked about their age. Blonde and blue-eyed, she wore a white dougi and a purple leotard underneath it._

"_Huh?" Twelve-year old Miu knew that she had seen something the second she'd gone outside to take a break from training with her grandfather. She saw it land behind the shrubs, but she couldn't tell what it had been, it was so quick, "What was that?"_

_Behind the shrubs, Naruto and Shikamaru both had matching expressions of horror on their faces. How could they botch it that early and let a girl their age see them? There had to be something they could do to salvage it._

_Luckily Naruto had an idea, touching his index and middle fingers to his throat in a specific spot, Naruto opened his mouth and let out the most picture-perfect rendition of a cat's meow that Shikamaru had ever heard from a human. Brilliant, right?_

_It backfired._

"_Wah! There's a kitty here?"_

_No, no, no! Goddamn it Naruto!_

_Thinking quickly again, Naruto did the exact same thing, only when he opened his mouth he threw his voice all the way across the yard to the wall on another side away from them, sending Miu scrambling to follow the shy cat that had fallen into her yard._

_Once she was gone, Shikamaru craned his head over in Naruto's direction in slow motion, "Oh my God, that actually worked? You can make perfect cat noises _and_ throw your voice?" In his head he was screaming about how he couldn't believe that had worked._

_Naruto proudly nodded, " I can do more than just cats. Remember that throat injury I got before I... well you know, you were there." Shikamaru nodded and as both cringed, Naruto realized that he didn't have to go into any more detail, "Well it made my voice sound like this and I can mess with it." As had been alluded to; Naruto had been _very_ good in the culture classes, "Been practicing a lot while we were coming to this town. Hurts though."_

_A roll of his eyes aside, Naruto and Shikamaru wasted not another second before dashing from behind cover to the nearest building which happened to be the long one that looked like a dojo. What better place to keep swords than in the first place you'd probably try to use one for practice?_

_Both boys slid underneath the outside floor and crawled underneath the inside, peeking through tatami mats until they figured that they were inside. Once again, ever the diligent point-man, Naruto went first again. From what Shikamaru could see from the few steps that Naruto took after getting out he opened some doors to probably look for where the swords were._

_He then heard the sound of another door opening on the opposite end of the dojo. Then the sound of a sword's hilt clicking free of its sheath, then a cut, then the sound of a body hitting the floor._

"_...A boy." A rather dull female voice said in a specifically slow manner, "Where did he… come from?" The blade of a sword then slid itself neatly through a tatami mat right in front of Shikamaru's face._

_Huh. Well… abort mission… if they were even going to get the choice._

"…_Troublesome."_

**Chapter 3: Dancing With Masters**

* * *

Contrary to what Kenichi thought, when he'd won the fight against Daimonji but had still had to leave the Karate Club it had not been the end of it. Because the thing about being perceived as being good at something was that other people had a tendency to try and see if there was really anything special about you.

Kenichi's problems didn't stop there. While he wasn't outright bullied after winning some measure of respect, it also attracted a new shark so to speak. Thanks to information from that slimy Niijima, they found out that the captain of the club that had refereed the fight now wanted to see if Kenichi's win had been a fluke.

What the hell? He wasn't even in Karate Club anymore. He'd switched out to the Gardening Club just to avoid these situations now!

In an effort to be proactive and head his troubles off at the pass, Kenichi had confronted Miu and asked her how she'd gotten so strong and what he had to do to reach the same level.

"_In fact, I do know one way to become stronger over a short period of time. If you go to this place and learn martial arts quickly enough you can become strong. But, the chances of you surviving are unlikely."_

Naruto stiffened up like a board when she'd said that to him, and when she explained that he just had to go there on his day off to see for himself. She drew him a map, but…

"_If you get lost or don't know where it is just call Naruto-kun. He can find it."_

And as Sunday rolled around, once again, Naruto sucked it up and got his friend's back, because that was what friends did, and what he knew Kenichi would do for him if he ever became useful enough for such a thing to actually matter. If only.

Dressed in the day-off attire of a blue zipped-up hoodie and orange cargo pants, Naruto knocked on Kenichi's front door and slapped himself, 'What's wrong with you! Get out now! You don't have to go there!' But on the other hand… 'No, stop being a coward. It'll be fine. You're going there to back up your friend. I can't tell him not to train there just because of my-… grr.'

A short time later the door opened to reveal a casually dressed cute preteen girl with messy brown hair almost like Kenichi's and purple eyes looking up at Naruto who grinned back down at her in return, "Hey there. Is your brother ready to go?"

The girl didn't let him in or move out of the way of the door, apparently not willing to let him off that easily, "And where've you been? You haven't come by to see me in forever!"

"I was here a few days ago." Naruto pointed out, remembering the day before Naruto's Karate Club fight where he'd helped Kenichi touch up his defensive movement after he'd trained with Miu, "It wasn't my fault you weren't paying attention when I walked in. Too much TV'll rot your brain Tidbit."

"Like yours? And don't call me that!" The girl said, scrambling up Naruto's back, using his backpack as an anchor to reach his head so she could start pulling on his cheeks and hair, "It is so your fault! You don't make footsteps when you walk through the house on purpose! How am I supposed to know?"

Naruto basically ignored the pestering and walked inside of the house, shutting the door behind him before kicking off his shoes and walking upstairs. From elsewhere in the house, an adult voice called out, "Honoka I heard you let someone in! Who's at the door?" Oh thank goodness it was Kenichi's mother. His father didn't like him, and he owned a shotgun that he had no problems with pulling out at a moment's notice.

"It's Lemonhead!"

Naruto grabbed Honoka over his shoulder and held her upside-down before responding to the voice he heard earlier, "Hey Shirahama-san, I'm just here to grab Kenichi for a while!" He then turned his attention to Honoka, who he was still holding upside-down as he climbed the stairs, "Now what'd I tell you about calling me Lemonhead? That's not cool Tidbit." He said in an annoyed voice

"What'd I tell you about calling me that?" Honoka responded with a just as annoyed pout, not caring that Naruto held her in such a precarious position. He'd done that a thousand times already. He never dropped her, "I'm not that little." She definitely didn't like the amused look on his face.

"I'm not even trying to hold you up right now. You're definitely that little." With that being said as he reached the top of the stairs he flipped her back upright and set her back on her feet, "Is your brother ready to go? I want to get this over with as soon as possible."

Honoka tried to look at Naruto's feet and mimic how he was walking to get the effect of the floor not creaking beneath him, but she couldn't see how it was any different from walking normally, "You're going to that girl's house too?" The youngest Shirahama seemed a bit miffed at her brother going to another girl's house. She was the only girl that was supposed to get his attention like that, and now Naruto was helping him. She had a bit of a brother complex, "What's going on?"

Of course she didn't know. Kenichi never told Honoka or his parents about any of the problems he was having. So Naruto probably shouldn't say anything about 'hulking gorilla mark 2' that wished to extract blood from her brother's face via fisticuffs.

"Man stuff." Naruto said as they reached Kenichi's doorway with Naruto knocking on it, startling Kenichi out of studying the map Miu drew for him, "You can ditch that thing by the way. I know how to get there from here."

He was not going to ditch it. He was going to save it as the first thing he got from Miu and saved it on his desk to do just that. Even the way she drew maps happened to be cute. Hard to translate into real, useful directions, but cute nonetheless. Either way, dressed in a simple white t-shirt and black he grabbed his bundled up karate clothes and got up to head out the door.

The pair set out with the entire day ahead of them.

The sunny, bright, pleasant weather seemed to taunt Naruto, who felt it would have been better for there to be storm clouds on the horizon, preparing to drench the town in rain. But once again his feet carried him all the way to the destination ahead of them.

Kenichi had to notice that all the way there, Naruto looked like a beaten man. But eventually they stopped outside of the largest pair of gates Kenichi had ever seen in his life, the only entrance to the whole walled off place. It looked more like the evil island base from Enter the Dragon than a place where someone like him could learn martial arts.

It was extremely imposing. Kenichi didn't even know that a place like existed in town.

"Alright." Naruto eventually said, standing next to Kenichi with his fingers twitching in anticipation, "You ready?" He'd let him drink in the sight for long enough. It was time for action. Time was wasting.

"Yeah." Kenichi said after a gulp of fear. For some reason Naruto was getting a deep sense of déjà vu from this scenario, but he let it slide in exchange for listening to his friend, "I came all this way. So let's do this!" He said, stepping forward and pushing at the gate in vain. He wasn't going to open that thing as he was, even putting both hands and his entire body into it, "Gah, what's with this thing? I can't budge it!"

Naruto slowly slipped out of Kenichi's sight and backed up a few steps, bouncing on his toes before jumping forward and landing a forceful kick just above where Kenichi was pushing to help him out. As Kenichi fell forward once the door gave way a smidge enough to open, Naruto landed on the ground behind him, Kenichi never seeing him do what he had just done.

Walking forward, Naruto picked Kenichi up off of the ground and dusted him off, "Come on Kenichi. Seriously, you've got to start bracing yourself. Now come on, you've got to present yourself!"

At that Kenichi nodded resolutely and stood ramrod-straight, hands at his side, "Hello!" He bellowed at the top of his voice, "I've been recommended to come here to learn the martial arts by a friend of mine! Fuurinji Miu!"

Naruto had not been expecting that. He covered his ears at the sudden volume and then reality set in as to where he was, and the fact that he didn't even have the cover of darkness this time to try and help. Why, oh why did Kenichi have to have a flare for the dramatic? It had to be all of those books he read.

His first instinct was to turn and run. He'd done what he needed to do. He'd taken his best friend to a place that he could better himself through hardship. And now he had to preserve his own health by _leaving_!

Only to feel a very familiar presence behind them before Kenichi even finished his loud proclamation and bowed in anticipation for anyone to come out in front of them.

'Oh my God, he's even bigger in broad daylight than he is at night!' Naruto thought to himself, slowly backing up away from the towering figure to the front of where Kenichi was bowing, still anticipating someone to greet them from his front. Naruto picked him up and turned him directly around where Kenichi let out a small yelp of shock at the sight of the man before them.

Perhaps the tallest human being that Kenichi had ever seen, the man had long blond hair and some age in his face to go with the blond beard and mustache on it and his strong-looking eyebrows. He wore a very long robe with a black belt tied around his waist and simple sandals on his feet. The length and size of the robe did nothing to hide the fact that he was one great mass of muscle, and underneath his sleeves on his hands he wore some kind of fist-guards.

He didn't seem to be looking down at either Naruto or Kenichi, instead staring straight ahead over their heads, but in their general direction, "Yes?" He said in a very wise but still strong and energetic voice, "How may I help you today? What brings you to our humble dojo?"

Naruto kept chanting in his head for Kenichi to talk, and hearing how the man spoke to him gave him confidence to step forward and do just that, "Well you see, ah, are you by any chance a martial arts master?"

"Well…" The old man took on a rather humble expression on his face as he stroked his beard with a smile, "I wouldn't exactly call myself that expert, but I've never lost a single fight even since my youth!" Naruto was glaring as many daggers as he could muster at him for downplaying himself the way he just had.

He wanted to call bullshit, but he hadn't been sent to the moon yet and he kind of liked it that way. Fuurinji Hayato was just the man for the job. He was _the_ man for the job.

"My name is Shirahama Kenichi!" He said with another bow, "I would like to know if you teach the martial arts! Fuurinji Miu recommended your dojo to me!"

"Did she now? Miu did?" Hayato said, amused somewhat before walking past Kenichi and Naruto, still not looking down at the two of them, "Well then, follow me. Yes we do teach the martial arts." Kenichi went to follow him before he realized that Naruto hadn't moved.

"What's wrong?" He asked Naruto who shook his head and pulled his goggles down over his eyes to hide them from giving away anymore tells, "You aren't coming?"

"I'm… not." Naruto said, giving his friend a thumbs-up, for support's sake, "You're the one that wants to train here though, so go for it!"

"Naruto-san, come on! I've never done anything like this before! I don't know what I'm getting into!" No, you really freaking didn't. You didn't at all, "I'm just asking you to tour this place with me. Come on, we've got to catch up or we'll make a bad first impression."

'I already made a bad first impression!' Naruto shouted in his head, 'And second, and third, and fourth, and whatever times impression I'm up to by now!' Why he hadn't been kicked the fuck out yet he didn't know. But for the time being he was getting a close look at the dojo without fear of being murdered for a misstep… yet.

Even if he got his lights dimmed in the next five minutes, that five minutes of intel could help him immensely.

With that, both Kenichi and Naruto jogged to catch up with the apparent elder of the dojo in time to turn the corner to the dojo building and see a massive man destroying a heavy bag with mid-ranged roundhouse kicks. And then a stone statue. And then a tree. And then the inside of the wall. All while shouting, 'Apapapapapa!'

"What the hell?" Kenichi screeched in shock and horror at the strength.

Extremely tall and muscular with lightly darkened skin and short spiky white hair, the man wore a yellow tanktop and red shorts with a Muay Thai headband around his head and bandages wrapped around his hands and feet.

While the old man explained who that was as if he wasn't a dangerous human being, Naruto had his own thoughts, 'The guy with the record around here for almost killing me when he finds me. Apachai Hopachai: The Muay Thai Death God of the Martial Arts Underworld.'

It wasn't even funny how hard that guy hit him. And it never seemed to be with ill intent either. Even so, he'd given Naruto by far the absolute worst wound of his entire life. It had actually been the wound that made Shikamaru give up, and it hadn't even happened to him.

"What kind of place is this?" Kenichi whispered to Naruto as they continued onward.

"Just keep going!" Naruto turned left to look inside of the slightly ajar sliding door of the dojo only to see another master, Shigure, seemingly meditating with her sword, thus he tried to shove Kenichi along, "Go, go, go!"

He was not getting cut today.

"What? Why?" Looking inside he stopped and noted the woman's beauty, "Wow. I knew Miu had something to do with this place, but that girl is really pretty." She then quickdrew her sword, cutting through the circle of candles surrounding her and the tips of the spears that had been stood up around her as well.

'A sword?' Kenichi thought in fear, before the girl turned to look at him and he was caught staring, 'And she can cut through other weapons?'

"…You." She said with no discernable expression on her face. But she wasn't talking to Kenichi the way he thought. She was talking to Naruto, who didn't say anything. If she hadn't cut him yet he wasn't going to push his luck. He turned and walked away. It'd been working so far. Why not keep it up? Due to him leaving and Kenichi quickly following they never heard the latter part of what she had to say, "…Ninja-boy."

As he reached the end of the outside floor of the dojo, he heard an older man's voice speak to him, "Thanks ninja-kid." Walking to the edge and looking over, Naruto saw a short old man poking halfway out from underneath the floor holding a camera to his chest. He had a thick black mustache and black hair jutting out from underneath his black derby hat. The rest of his clothing looked like a stereotypical Chinese martial artist's apparel in the color of green, "I got some primo pictures and never got caught. I'll be sure to reward you for the interference later."

"By letting me get what I want from this place without kicking my ass?" Naruto asked hopefully, only getting a laugh from the old man as he slid himself back underneath the porch just as Kenichi caught up to him to see.

"Of course not! I meant copies of these lovely shots when I get around to making them! I'll plant them on your body for you when you wake up!"

"Ma Kensei is a perv." Naruto said, shoving his hands in his pockets as Kenichi looked at him confusedly, "Ma Kensei is also the best Chinese martial artist in the world… as far as I know." He was also one of only two masters here that didn't beat him to a bloody pulp whenever he showed up. Kensei preferred softer techniques.

"The best?"

"Remember what you asked me about dojos before? This isn't just any old place with people teaching and learning how to fight." Naruto pointed to the overall grounds, getting Kenichi to take a vast look around, "This is where the best are. Ryouzanpaku is the pinnacle of martial arts, and if you can survive it you're one of the best."

That sounded… amazing. The very best? And if he could train here and make it through he could be too? That was exactly what he wanted! To prove that someone could be strong and just! To be strong enough to keep bad people from harming his friends and family.

So he could… protect Miu.

Naruto was-. Wait, Naruto.

"Why do you know so much about this place?" Kenichi asked as they continued on after the elder of the dojo who had politely been waiting on them around the other side of the dojo building, "You're not explaining anything to me. What's wrong?" Naruto didn't sound excited at all about much of what he was saying.

"I'll tell you later on the way home." Naruto said as he stared at Hayato outright, no longer caring if the elder knew who he was in the daylight or not. He obviously did. Was the old man messing with him? He had to be. Clicking his tongue, Naruto just sat down on the floor, legs dangling off of the side, "Keep on going. I'll be right here. I just want to think for a bit."

A hand was set on Kenichi's shoulder by the towering old man who stood right by him, "Let's go meet the Karate teacher." Hearing about Karate excited Kenichi, but his friend seemed a bit down in the mouth. Naruto mustered up a big smile and shooed him off until they went back inside.

"I DON'T TRAIN ANYONE! THAT'S MY MOTTO!"

'The guy in second place for people that have almost killed me the most.' Naruto thought to himself instinctively upon hearing the loud, angry voice shout out, 'Sakaki Shio: The 100-Dan Street Brawler. Does that rank even go that high?'

What was going on here?

Why wasn't he a stain on the grass or the floor yet?

"Oh, you came!" Looking up from what he knew already to be the main house where the elder of the house and Miu stayed he saw the girl herself wearing the normal purple leotard he was used to seeing her in with a paw-print patterned apron over it. No glasses and her hair was down as it always was outside of school, "Where is Kenichi?" She asked as she walked over to him.

"Your scary-ass grandpa is showing him around." Naruto said, his voice sounding more down than she'd ever heard him. Even when he was losing fights against her he'd never sounded so… burnt out, "Miu-chan are you guys messing with me?"

"Huh?" She asked, looking confused by what he was saying, "Of course not. What do you mean by that?"

"Nobody's blitzed me yet." Naruto said, looking around at the entire premises that he had a pretty decent view of, "You haven't even attacked me yet. It's confusing."

"Not really." Miu smiled at him and set a hand on his shoulder, "The first time you called here to get me for Kenichi I told everyone that you and I were friends and told them your name, so grandpa made them all agree not to attack you on-sight anymore unless you were sneaking around again."

Naruto smiled a bit bitterly and bent over enough to set his chin on his knees, "Wow. You guys really don't see me as a threat at all do you?"

"Well you're strong for a disciple-class…" Miu pointed out, tapping at her chin in thought, "…But they're all masters. Whatever you keep coming here for, it obviously isn't to kill anyone." She said, switching to patting him on the head, "What do you keep coming here for anyway?"

"I can't tell you that!" Naruto said with a laughing grin, "If you knew you'd protect it better and then I'd be screwed! I only have two advantages left over Ryouzanpaku." Naruto said, holding up those two fingers, "First is that you don't know where I live. The second is that you don't know what I want."

"It is true enough. You're rather difficult to find for a child, even though we know your name now."

He could feel the presence standing behind him and knew him as the second man that could defeat him but leave him healthy enough to walk home after knocking him out; Koetsuji Akisame, the Philosophical Jujitsu Master. A man with messy brown hair in a red and white hakama, he had a thin mustache and solid white eyes that seemed to always be analyzing everything, including him at the moment.

"Hello Koetsuji-san." Miu greeted, turning around to smile up at him as he stood over her and Naruto, "Heh, it's strange isn't it? Seeing Naruto-kun and not trying to stop him from doing whatever he wanted on the grounds."

Akisame nodded in agreement with a hand on his chin, "Indeed it is. I've always wanted to speak with the rude little boy that always managed to sneak into our dojo. You're quite the determined one aren't you? Repeatedly challenging masters the way you do."

"I'm not challenging you." Naruto said with a haughty sniff, "I'm robbing you. I never _want_ to fight any of you… it just happens. And then you chuck me over the wall."

"Well Kensei and I treat you after we confront you while you're unconscious." Akisame corrected matter-of-factly, "Then we throw you back over the wall." Because that was so much better, "You've tried this around 72 times over the last four years by my count. Unless I'm missing any that no one said anything about."

"Why don't you ever kill me?"

"Practitioners of Katsujinken (Fist of Life) never take lives by intention, even those of Satsujinken (Fist of Killing) affiliation."

"But I'm a ninja. Ninjas get killed when they get caught."

"You've never directly threatened any of our lives."

"Because this mission isn't an assassination." Naruto said with a raised eyebrow, "I don't want to try to kill you. It's not an objective. I won't kill anyone I don't have to. It's the easy way out. It's a stereotype as far as I'm concerned that a ninja has to be a cold-blooded killer, and I don't believe in it!"

Akisame just stared at Naruto for a short time before turning and walking away, 'What an interesting boy. A ninja that refuses to kill outside of direct orders to do so, even though he expects it from any other opponent.' How strange. Akisame had dealt with ninjas before, and killing had usually been the first option for them, no matter what in his experiences. They were most assuredly Satsujinken.

Naruto wasn't Katsujinken by his own recent admission, but he didn't endeavor to destroy his foes with his attacks the way every other Satsujinken fighter did. One couldn't exist in the middle forever though. Eventually if he was to grow as strong as he could he'd have to lean over to one side or the other. He'd never seen a true master represent both.

"Whatever." Naruto said, brushing his nose with his thumb at apparently being ignored or snubbed by Akisame, "The only reason I'm here today is to try and help Kenichi get motivated to train here."

"It was good of you to do that even though it must have been hard to come here." Miu told him, smiling adorably at him. It was an inner-defense breaker.

"Hehe…" Naruto said, breaking out of his surly mood with an ego-raging grin, "It wasn't that hard. Sometimes you've got to be the bigger man and fall on a grenade or two for the greater good! As long as Kenichi gets as strong as he needs to be here that's fine!"

'We're getting a new student?' Akisame thought to himself as he opened the door to the dojo a smile growing on his face, 'This is quite the day.' He'd have to go easy to make sure he didn't scare the young man, whoever he was, away.

XxX

(That Evening)

Kenichi woke up feeling himself being carried over someone's shoulders. That Akisame man… he told him that he wasn't that strict a trainer? All of those absurd strength and balance exercises? Running and dragging him on a tire all the way to the farthest train station in the town? And everything else that went into what he called 'light conditioning'?

His body was a sore wreck. But oh, Miu had been so supportive when she'd told him to keep trying hard. It was worth it. Seeing her smile at him like that and believe in him was worth it.

But how was he getting home?

"Kenichi, you handled those exercises like a champ for your first day." Was that Naruto's voice? Naruto was carrying him? "If you stopped all of the screaming and complaining though you wouldn't get tired as fast."

"Naruto-san?" A weary Kenichi said, "Is that you?" He was too weak to push himself up and turn his head to see, but the sturdy backpack that his frame was partly resting on sure seemed like Naruto's, "You can't carry me home? Can you?"

"Yeah I can." Naruto said in a dry tone of voice.

"Why? You're not strong."

"Well I don't know about that." Naruto said in the same manner, knowing that Kenichi was so exhausted he'd never remember a single part of this conversation. Hitting 'The Wall' for the first time was a bitch to every part of your body, even your mind, and he was there to help, "I'm a ninja."

He did promise he'd tell him later. If Kenichi didn't remember it after he woke up that wasn't his fault.

"Oh." Kenichi said, shutting his eyes again to get some rest, "Okay then. Night."

"Night bud."

XxX

(A Week Later – Koryou High School)

Kenichi's training was proceeding as normal. Gruelingly. But there was still the matter of the man that wanted to clobber him to see if he was actually strong. And he had taken to looking for him at random points in the day in places where he knew he'd be.

Luckily, his best friend was pretty much the best person anyone could have to show them places to hide, and Kenichi wasn't a noticeable guy, thus in between classes and at lunch Naruto and Miu would stash him in places to hide and find indirect ways for him to move around the school. It even led to Kenichi's first roofhop. Naruto was so proud.

And Kenichi had questions when he saw Naruto clear gaps just as casually as Miu did. He clearly did not remember what Naruto had told him on the first day of his training.

Either way, it was still a problem since Kenichi had absolutely no techniques under his belt, and only enough conditioning to be able to walk himself home every day after practice at Ryouzanpaku.

Naruto had to get back to his own training and planning at home. Now that he'd seen the inside of Ryouzanpaku during the daytime he'd gotten a better view of the terrain than he had at night while he had to keep an eye out for someone to catch him, but since he'd only been able to go into and around the dojo building he still had no idea where those damnable swords were!

The current day went as normally, with Kenichi being hidden in random areas that no one would look for him in, until the very end of the day when seconds after the bell rang, the gigantic man that had refereed Kenichi's fight walked into the room, rolling two walnuts around in one hand as he looked at the other few students that had remained in there for lunch, all looking quite intimidated at his presence.

"Tsukuba-senpai…" More than a few of them muttered at the sight of him.

He'd been like a cloud hanging around the classroom for days. The only thing he wanted was to find and fight Kenichi, and no one was talking, 'Useless idiots don't know where to find Shirahama…' But on this day he noticed the same guy that had run into the Karate Club room to gloat after Kenichi had won against Daimonji.

Walking over to Naruto, the rest of the class just silently watched as he slammed his hands on Naruto's desk hard enough to leave handprints in the wood, "Where's Shirahama?" Let's see that bastard get loud now, "You're his pal right? The only person willing to hang out with someone so sorry. I guess that makes you sorrier than him."

"Let's see…" Naruto said, not looking up to make eye contact with the man, "I don't know about that, but if you've been looking for Kenichi all day you probably didn't sit down and eat for the whole period. I think I've got a banana in here somewhere, you want it?"

It sounded like he was being nice and trying to diffuse the situation, but it really wasn't since Naruto openly referred to the entire Karate Club as gorillas. It was an inside joke that only the rest of the class got, and due to that they all slid farther away from where Naruto was.

Tsukuba grabbed Naruto's arm before he could reach into his bag and set it back on the table, "I don't want your food. I want Shirahama. I've been waiting to fight that coward for a week." Miu's eyes darted to a certain spot in the room for a split-second, but Naruto kept his eyes right on Tsukuba now that he was grabbing his arm, "Now I'll ask you one more time. Where is he?"

"Not here. He's been leaving every day first thing."

"I guess I'll send him a message then. Take it for me would you?" Tsukuba said, gripping Naruto's arm tighter than before.

Naruto sighed and stood up out of his seat, "Fine. Come on. Follow me. There are a few places he could be, trying to wait you out."

Tsukuba nodded and let go of Naruto's arm forcefully before he followed him out of the room so that he could take him to where Kenichi was hiding from him. The door shut with a forceful slam that reverberated through the room and just like that the spell of silence over the students fell.

"Oh man… Shirahama is so dead!"

"That weird kid Naruto is going to sell out his friend like that? How lame!"

"He had to! If he didn't Tsukuba-senpai was going to kill him!"

The ceiling of the room started bumping around before much to the surprise of the rest of the class, Kenichi through a tile that slid open and slammed through several desks below him, "Ah!" Miu immediately ran over to him as he started getting up, "Kenichi are you alright?"

"When Naruto gets to wherever he's taking that guy and I'm not there he's going to be livid!" Kenichi said, pointing at the handprints that Tsukuba had left in Naruto's desk just from slamming his hands on them, "Naruto-san's not going to walk away from that! Dodging me a few weeks ago isn't like dodging a real fighter!"

"It'll be alright, just trust him."

"This isn't right!" Kenichi said, stepping to the door to try and find them before the worst could occur, "This is the kind of thing I want to be strong to stop! I want to be able to say something's wrong out loud and actually have the strength to change it! I want to be able to protect the people around me like yo-!" He stopped himself before he could effectively confess that he was into her before he got back on course, "I can't let Naruto get destroyed trying to cover my training!"

"Kenichi-kun it'll be okay." Miu assured him, missing his slip-up, "I thought he'd told you already. The first day that we watched you train he told me he'd let you know about him. He promised."

"…Told me what?"

XxX

(Elsewhere in the School)

The doors to the gym supply shed opened up and Naruto stepped in first, flipping the light switch to turn on the dim lights of the room. As Tsukuba followed behind him, Naruto made a great effort to peer inside before he threw his hands out to the side, "Man, he's not here either? He didn't tell me he got new hiding spots!"

Tsukuba slammed the door to the shed shut with a loud bang, "That enough! You've been taking me around this entire damn school showing me empty rooms, bathrooms, the roof! I'm tired of your shit!"

"Hey! Hey! You think I want to fight?" Naruto asked, backing off into the fairly large equipment room with his hands up, "No! Just calm down! Why do you want to fight Kenichi anyway? Did him winning piss you off that much?"

"I don't give a crap about what he did to Daimonji!" Tsukuba said, turning over entire cases of things out of anger, "Ragnarok can't have uninvited upstarts popping up on our turf! Any people out there seen as strong that aren't in Ragnarok are targets."

Ragnarok? That stupid gang that some of the students at the school were members of? Great. He knew Tsukuba had gang connections, and this was the last thing they needed. Some kind of low-level gang boss trying to look tough and consolidate his own influence.

There was no way he'd stop until he beat Kenichi down. That wasn't going to happen.

"Look, Kenichi just wants to train in the martial arts." Naruto continued trying to talk the situation down, "He left your club. He isn't even trying to fight in school. Just back off already! He won one fight!"

"You're making an ass out of me!" Tsukuba said, turning around to punch a big hole into the wall of the shed with a loud cunch. The action only took a moment, but when he turned back around, Naruto wasn't in sight at all, "What?"

The room was pretty shadowy, but it was just equipment racks and open crates. There could only be so many places that the coward was hiding.

Tsukuba went to the closet with lacrosse and field hockey sticks and opened it up only to find nothing but said gear inside. There wasn't any way he could be in too many other places, so he just walked back to the door and stood in his Karate stance to wait him out, "Fine. If I can't fight Shirahama I'll just have to crush you for wasting my time."

Naruto's voice started echoing out through the shed. Instead of the complying tone he'd been using before to try and appease Tsukuba into backing off, it seemed like all bets were off now, "You think you're strong? You think that just because you've got a black belt that you're a badass. Well come get me Mister Badass! I'm not going anywhere! Or did all of those steroids you took to get those muscles shrink your brain as much as they shrank something else!"

An enraged Tsukuba kicked over several crates in the shed large enough for a person to hide in, but there was still nothing for him to discover inside of them, "Come out! Running your mouth like that just signed your death certificate! Why don't you show your face and back that up?"

"No."

And with that, three javelins flew through the air and stabbed into the door one after the other with horrible thumps.

"I don't think I've tried anything on anyone weaker than me in years. I feel weird about it." Who was he calling weak?

"If you don't come out I'll kill you!" Tsukuba barked, spittle flying from his mouth as he continued looking around for seemingly nothing, "Hiding in the dark doesn't make you strong! Come out and prove it!"

Due to the way the lightbulb shades of the shed aimed down to focus the light, he never saw the figure on the ceiling holding on up there in the dark, with a prime position for ambush, "Okay." And with that he let go and dropped onto his victim.

XxX

(Elsewhere on the School Grounds)

Kenichi ran through the halls, not caring if he ran into Tsukuba or not any longer. He had to find his best friend. Miu was following behind him, acting as if his best run wasn't even close to being fast enough to exhaust her, "I'm telling you, Naruto-kun is fine."

Finally having run out of ideas for places where Naruto would have tried to lead someone away to, Kenichi stopped by the footlockers on the first floor and sank down against them, "I can't find him anyway. I hope he's alright."

"Well if you're asking about your friend-." Niijima's sudden appearance on the top of the lockers Kenichi was sitting against startled him into standing up and jumping away, "-I happen to have info that says that Uzumaki Naruto was seen heading out toward the fields out back with Tsukuba-senpai."

Kenichi didn't need to hear anything else before he got up and sprinted for the track outside, past that he would find the shed that held all of the athletic equipment with three dangerous javelins stabbing out of the side of it.

"AAAAHHHH!"

After the loud blood-curdling scream, three loud thumping bangs came from the shed and Kenichi turned on the afterburners in time to see the javelins get pulled out of the door.

The door was then thrown open and Naruto walked out holding a torn handful of what had been Tsukuba's white uniform shirt that he was using to wipe his fist off. Upon seeing Kenichi and Miu, he grinned, "Yeah, guess what? I found out why this guy is after you. You need to train harder, because Ragnarok thinks you're an upstart."

Kenichi's jaw dropped at Naruto being the one that walked out of the wrecked-looking shed and ran past him to look inside where he saw Tsukuba sitting in the last dent his body made in the wall, shirt torn and blood from his nose and mouth pouring down his chest.

Slowly turning back around where Naruto had tossed the segment of shirt aside, Kenichi slowly walked up to him and spoke in a ghastly voice, "How… in the world… did you do that?"

"I told you already." Naruto said with a shrug, "I'm a ninja." It was easier to say the second time.

Kenichi just stared at him before his outburst occurred, "A NINJA!?"

"Yes~! A ninja!" Niijima appeared out of nowhere, sticking his PDA right in Kenichi's face, "My sources are never wrong! I knew it all along! And now I'm going to have a voiced confession and pictures for the school paper!"

Naruto just stared at Niijima for several seconds, contemplating making him disappear, but thought against it. Even if people in the school knew he was a ninja, who cared? Ryouzanpaku already did. His cover had already been blown for years. It was never going to get any further than that, and even if it spread further than that the second he finished his mission the next one wouldn't possibly be in the same town, "Yeah, I'm a ninja. I never said I wasn't."

"You've been a ninja all this time and I never found out?" Kenichi asked, quieter than before but still very loudly, "…Wait, what were you saying about Ragnarok? You mean that gang right?"

"Yes." Niijima said, moving between Naruto and Kenichi as he pat them both on the shoulder, "Tsukuba-senpai was a useful underling of this school's Ragnarok representative: Valkyrie. You two will probably be targeted after this as the man that started all of it and the one that stood at his side, kekekeke." He didn't sound sorry about such a thing, actually interested in seeing how it would play out apparently.

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Secondary Dwelling – Later That Day)

Kenichi sat down and slowly absorbed everything that Naruto had told him since their arrival to his place of training. He had already changed into his dougi and was ready to practice, but Naruto had to explain things to him first.

"…So you're a ninja, trained since you were little, here on a mission to steal something of great value from Ryouzanpaku."

"Yep."

"And for the last four years you've been a normal kid during the day, but at night or outside of school you'd constantly try to make plans to break in and always wound up being stopped by the masters and Miu-san?"

"Well she doesn't stop me as much as the others." Naruto said as he took a drink of the tea that Miu had brought for everyone to enjoy while the conversation was going on, "We usually trade wins back and forth because we're kind of even but the masters just-, pwoooogh!" Naruto imitated the sound of slashing and ran a finger across his neck, "-Every time. It's terrible. Every adult in this room has almost killed me at least once."

"Apa… Apachai is sorry." Apachai said bashfully, the Thai man raised his hand as if he were being admonished in school and spoke in his difficult Japanese, "Didn't mean to use elbow on ninja-boy the first time. Just reflex, apa! Right Sakaki?"

Another man in the room just chuckled with his arms crossed over his broad chest. He was tall and burly with black slicked-back hair, tanned skin, and a broad horizontal scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. He wore blue jeans and an open brown leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows to expose his massive muscles and taped wrists, "Yeah, it was an accident. Don't go throwing sharp weapons and I won't respond the way I did that one time."

"I'm not letting any of you jerks get close to me when you find me if I can help it! Especially you two!" Naruto shouted, jumping up off of the ground to glare at the Karate master, "And you kicked me through the goddamn dojo wall!"

"At least I didn't throw you _over_ a wall that time!" Sakaki said with a bellowing laugh as he took a swig from his beer bottle, "Oh wait, I did after I picked your carcass up off of the ground. Nevermind! Wahahaha!"

"All of my hate!" Naruto shouted back at him even though he kept laughing at his past expense, effectively ignoring his aforementioned hate. Eventually Naruto reached into his pocket and fished out a coin that he threw at a bottlecap on the floor that then flipped up to hit Sakaki in the face.

It never got close to making it though, but it did make the man stop and glare at him. Naruto probably would have taken that beating freely. At least he would have regained a bit of his self-respect for it, "Don't try that environmental attack crap of yours on me kid. You don't cover it up well enough to catch a real master by surprise."

'Wow.' Kenichi thought to himself, 'What kind of technique was that?'

"Modest ain't we?" Naruto said right back before bracing for a hit that never came, 'What? I'm still awake?' He then noticed that Sakaki hadn't budged other than remaining seated, still glaring at him, 'Oh, that's right! They can't hit me unless I'm doing something shady!'

Miu walked up to Kenichi and handed him a drink that he took before beckoning her to come closer, which she did as he whispered in her ear, "So, you've been fighting Naruto-san for years." A happy nod confirmed that they'd been 'friends' for a _long_ time, "Uh, is Naruto as strong as you?"

"It depends." Miu explained vaguely, "Let's see… Most of the time grandpa just knocks him back over the wall when we fight, but I've knocked him out three times and made him run away five times."

Ears burning, Naruto turned around and gave his side of the story, "Yeah? Well I've wound up knocking her out twice and subduing her four times." And he wouldn't say that Hayato knocked him 'over the wall'. Technically that was right, but it wasn't close to the extent of it.

"Subduing and knocking out aren't the same thing?" Kenichi wondered aloud.

"No, I trap her mostly when I win." Naruto said, "Miu-chan's a better fighter than me. If we just fought like you'd fight her she'd probably eventually win, but I can do stuff sometimes that'll throw her off. I'm cagy."

"Is that what he's calling it, 'cagy?'" Kensei said, aiming his camera up into the rafters to try and take a picture underneath Shigure's skirt, but she wasn't giving the diminutive Chinese master an angle to get a shot from much to his displeasure, "What a nice way to call himself devious." He simultaneously reached out a hand to attempt to grope Miu's boobs, but she saw it coming and moved along to continue serving the others.

"Now, now, enough picking on our guest." Akisame said before focusing on Kenichi, "You're being targeted by a gang. What do you plan on doing to handle it? Your situation is only going to get worse."

"I… don't know." Kenichi said before looking over at Miu who was still dutifully serving the masters of the dojo refreshments. He didn't want her to have to protect him and keep having to look out for him, "But I can't let people like that go after me and try to go through the people I care about to do it. I'll take whatever I have to if I can stop that from happening."

"Hm. I guess your muscles are conditioned enough to begin learning Jujitsu technique from me then."

"I wonder how he would do with some Chinese Kenpo?"

"Apa! Apachai wants to teach Kenichi strong Muay Thai!"

"Ha, let's make sure he can survive me before that Apachai. If he can't last three days in my Karate training he won't survive yours for one!"

Hearing that people actually wanted to train their newest disciple got Naruto to bump Kenichi with his elbow, "Well it looks like you don't have to worry about how you're going to get stronger. If you make it through all of that you should be just fine." At least four fighting styles? Lucky dog.

Kenichi was sweating to himself, since all of them seemed to be looking at him conspiratorily and he wasn't a fan of those eyes that the masters were conversing amongst themselves with, shooting glances at him every now and then while they talked about training plans, "Right…" He replied unsurely, "And now that I train here you don't have to go through with your mission to steal from Ryouzanpaku."

"I'm still doing that."

"Huh?" Kenichi replied in disbelief, "But I train here now. Aren't we friends?"

Naruto nodded, "Of course, and I'm friends with Miu-chan too." He said as said girl sat down on her knees right by them with a smile, "But I've been doing this before I met you, and it's way bigger than just me. There's no way I'm stopping just because you train here. Just make sure that you're never in the way when I try, because I won't take it easy on you. I won't have the time to."

Sakaki came over and slammed a firm, large hand on Kenichi's shoulder, "Oh don't sweat him. If you're ever here when he makes an attempt you'll be fine. It won't be a problem."

A hopeful Kenichi looked up at the scar-faced man, "Does that mean that you think I've got potential to eventually match Naruto-san?" Everyone went silent before they all started laughing in unison, even Miu. Kenichi didn't find it very funny and felt lower than the floor at the perceived humor of the question, "You didn't have to put it that way."

Ma Kensei slid over to Naruto's side, accentuating his lack of height by being able to post his hand on Naruto's shoulder to lean on him, "Sakaki didn't mean it like that. He just meant that if Naruto here ever comes across you while he's skulking around he won't kill you when he subdues you. He might even leave you conscious."

Miu nodded in frantic agreement having had it happen to her in the past, all the while having to fend off rapid sticky-hands from Kensei the entire time.

"So I don't have Naruto's potential?"

"Oh that? Well the thing is, you don't really have any potential… at all."

From Naruto's point of view this was absolutely surreal. He'd spent four years doing anything he could to get into Ryouzanpaku and rip them off, but now they'd actually let him in and were conversing with him like he was desired company.

Looking up he saw Shigure hanging out on the support beams above the floor just allowing everything down below to happen without taking part in it. Naruto waved up at her only to get a blank stare in return.

Okay, so most of them were conversing with him like he was desired company. That was still better than attacking-on-sight.

"What's the matter Naruto-kun, you don't seem very comfortable." Miu asked him, curiously wondering why Naruto always seemed to be shifting about and walking on eggshells whenever he was on the property. It was the same way he'd been at first when he'd started spending time around her after Kenichi 'introduced' them, "Is there anything I can do?"

"No, it's nothing with what's going on. This is great." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "It's just how can I sit here, talk with you, drink your tea, eat your snacks, eventually try to steal something priceless from here, and look you in the eye ever again?" Like he'd said before, he never hated her. It was just a mission that he had to complete if he ever wanted to continue his ninja career. But instead of getting easier over time it seemed to keep getting complicated, "I have to do my mission. But if I do it I'll lose one and now maybe both of my friends."

Shikamaru might have been right. This might have been impossible.

"Like I said…" Miu said, not dropping her lovely mood for even a second, "As far as I'm concerned, we're friends and rivals too. If you ever do take what you're after and can really get away with it that'll just prove you're better won't it? And you won't ever try to kill me or any of us would you?" Naruto's eyes hardened and he shook his head.

Akisame interjected upon hearing Naruto's own concerns. Even children that weren't under his wing as a disciple could use some guidance every now and then, "We can deal with the loss of a possession no matter what it is. That doesn't mean that we'll merely let you enter and leave with it however. That is a different matter entirely."

"It's just a matter of you being man enough to find a way to take it." Sakaki said with a dark grin, "Personally, I don't think you'll ever get it done in a hundred years, especially with all of us masters being here. So you won't ever have to worry about that brat!" Naruto just growled at him. That man just got a kick out of pushing his buttons.

"He is a good person." Shigure eventually said, still not straying from her roost, "He is a ninja that does not… reek of blood. Rare. Almost impossible."

"You guys are really making it hard for me to want to rob you, you know." Naruto then looked over at Kenichi who was still grousing about, "What's eating you?"

"…My best friend was a hidden prodigy ninja this whole time."

"You're still on about that?"

"I wouldn't call Uzumaki-san a prodigy." Hayato said in a loud voice as he finally walked into the dojo, getting all attention set on him, "Not even close really. But you asked about his potential compared to yours. Calling him a prodigy would be like saying you had a talent for martial arts." Both Naruto and Kenichi just stared at him, wondering if he had a point other than bluntly putting them both down in the same comparison, "His potential is an entirely different thing altogether."

Naruto was about to open his mouth and shout out that if he wasn't a prodigy why did his village let him leave four years early with a mission to deal with those superhumans? But he wasn't going to use his clan's name or speak of the island on which he trained. That was a rule they'd given him when taking him to Japan. He could not use direct names to attribute his origin to them.

XxX

(A Few Weeks Later – Town Streets)

'This time. We'll definitely get him this time.' Kenichi and Miu thought to themselves as they walked down the street from school with Naruto somewhat in front of them. Ever since Naruto's ninja affiliation became known by people things had begun changing a bit in that place, 'Just where does he live?'

The three best members of Ragnarok member Valkyrie's gang had been set forth to do something about them, but the thing about that was that it should have resulted in a confrontation by now under the previous circumstances before Naruto's being a ninja became common knowledge.

Since he no longer had to hide the fact that he was a ninja he could openly do odd things that would have been too quirky before to get away with and keep his secret. This included the all-important disappearing-without-a-trace-out-of-the-blue trick so that no one in class other than Miu could tell where he was. This was what he'd done with her to help Kenichi hide earlier, just now on a way more blatant scale.

Fighting head-on was never his first choice to deal with people, even if he did like the possible challenge from time to time. That could be Kenichi's thing. If he had to fight he would, but he wasn't going to make it easy for anyone.

Either way this had to end in a hurry. It was already detracting from his all-important mission and he could swear he was getting closer to finally accomplishing it, but yet another wall went up in his way.

"You guys have got to stop trying to find out where I live." Naruto asked when he finally led them past the street that should have been the turn to start to Ryouzanpaku, "Can't I just have this?"

"But you know where both of us live." Miu supplied helpfully as to their reasoning, "We've already told you that we don't care if you keep trying to achieve your mission, so I don't know why you're still hiding it. Home phone number too."

"Err…" Kenichi moved close to Miu to whisper in her ear, "Naruto-san doesn't have a landline at all, and he only uses disposable phones so he can keep changing his number." Wow, in hindsight he really should have seen the whole ninja thing coming. That was pretty shifty, "I think he did the first thing so that he didn't show up in the phone book."

"Ah! Wow, that's so smart. Really ninja-like!"

"No…" Naruto said with a cough and a red blush on his cheeks, "I just keep forgetting to pay certain bills on time all of the time." If his house's mortage wasn't automatically taken out of the funds his parents had left for him he probably would have been foreclosed on with as many bills as he forgotten, "Anyway… why does it matter so much to you guys?"

Kenichi tried to say for no particular reason, but Miu beat him to the punch with the actual reason they wanted to know where Naruto lived, "Because whenever you stop by Ryouzanpaku you always see how Kenichi is training, but he never sees how you train and he thinks that's unfair."

"Miu-san!" Kenichi whined, not wanting to sound so shifty, especially about someone that was supposed to be his friend, "I didn't want him to actually know that!"

"You're right, that is unfair." Hearing Naruto actually admit that was a surprise to Kenichi, but then he turned around with an infuriating grin on his face, "But it's kind of my job to not be fair, I'm definitely not losing no matter what!" He then turned back forward again, "I'm not even going home today so I don't know why you're following me."

"Are you going to Ryouzanpaku today?" Miu asked, bounding up next to Naruto with her arms behind her back since they were apparently no longer trailing him to his house, "You haven't seen how Kenichi is getting better at the techniques all of the masters are teaching him."

Naruto shook his head and threw his arms up behind the back of his neck, squinting at the sun before pulling his goggles down over his eyes, "Nah. I figure if we have a problem that's not going to stop until we're beaten to a pulp or win completely I might as well do something about it in the meantime. So I'm going to go find these Ragnarok people and check them out. The only one I actually know anything about is Valkyrie, because she's supposed to go to our school."

Unlike Kenichi who was relatively new to the fighting scene, Naruto had always had to deal with the prospect of people figuring out he was a ninja. So when they entered high school to keep real fighters at arm's length he kept his ear to the ground and figured out enough to avoid it, which had been pretty easy since rumors spread all of the time.

It was working until Kenichi stepped on some toes.

"You're actually going to look for these people?" Kenichi asked in disbelief, "But… but… they're supposed to be the strongest gang in town."

"Look, if the only time you're gonna train full-time is on weekends, that's fine, but it's not enough if you want this to go away anytime soon." Naruto defended, "I really don't like having to walk around looking over my shoulder, so I'm going to start kicking some ass, because I'm a problem solver. I solve problems."

"This isn't solving the problem!"

"How is getting rid of someone trying to maim us _not_ solving the problem?"

And this was what Naruto had been afraid of. The moment Kenichi found out that Naruto was a ninja their points of view would begin to clash. Kenichi was a straightforward kind of guy that liked things direct and with the clearest option ahead of him. Naruto did too, but their most clear option scenarios differed. If Kenichi was going to fight, it was going to be head-to-head. If Naruto was going to fight, that wasn't going to be his first choice.

But he was being forced into action. He'd never be able to focus on Ryouzanpaku with great fighters his age in the exact same town trying to take his head. It was too big a distraction, "Kenichi, come on. I don't have time to sit around and wait! Ducking and dodging through the halls? Detours home? How long do you want that to happen for?"

"How long do you think it's going to take for me to get strong enough to fight these guys?" Kenichi asked, feeling a bit of offense at the comment.

"I don't know! And that's the problem!" Naruto finally exploded, pacing around and waving his arms about indignantly, "Look, I can't sit back and worry about my mission if I've got bad guys trying to fry me! And I can't just sit still on defense! I've got to do… something! Even if it's just to see what we're up against!"

Kenichi definitely didn't like that, and Miu could see it in his eyes, moving between the two to keep anything drastic from happening just in case. She had made Naruto mad before, and he was notoriously hotheaded. If he wasn't hiding he was a ninja any longer this could wind up coming to blows.

Neither of them were right, but neither of them were wrong either as it was all a matter of preference and opinion. And as stubborn as Naruto was, he didn't want to wait for them to come to him, forcing him to react. They'd already had to deal with that, as they were still dodging Valkyrie's Three Man Army so that Kenichi could learn some more technique. As he was, he couldn't confidently take on real martial artists, and that's who they would be dealing with.

Naruto could. And instead of waiting for them to attack him or Kenichi he was going to get the ball rolling and pop them in the mouth first. But this was only making for a bad situation. Miu seemed nearly desperate to stop her two friends from fighting each other in the street.

Both of them would rather win their way than just win. And in this case those ways were grossly different.

"I'll tell you what!" Naruto eventually said before he stomped off and continued on his own way, choosing to stubbornly separate for the day if that was how it was going to be, "I'll listen to you and do what you say the second you can beat me and make! Until then, if you're not with me keep on training!"

Kenichi looked at Naruto's departing back heatedly until he vanished from sight, but even then he couldn't let it go, 'Did Naruto ever really believe that I could ever be strong enough to protect my loved ones.' To be honest, hearing that Naruto didn't think he could handle the situation hurt, 'He always said that you could do anything if you tried hard enough.'

He preached that. But how much of a believer could a guy that was a self-professed 'awesome ninja' really be? Naruto had never been bullied or beaten up. Now he knew that he always used his ninja stuff to somehow get out of it.

"I hope he's careful." Miu said, looking off in the direction where Naruto had stormed off in with a worried expression.

And hearing her say that ripped at Kenichi's heart. The girl that had been a significant portion of the reason that he did this, that he believed he could be stronger to protect, was showing a big level of concern for the guy that he had just been arguing for.

'Does she think he's right?' He thought to himself before shaking his head, "Who cares?" He said before beginning to walk off to the Ryouzanpaku Dojo for his weekend training stretch.

"What do you mean Kenichi? You don't really want something bad to happen do you?" The thought of someone as kind as Kenichi holding that kind of a grudge for a friend, their friend in Naruto made her stomach twist up.

At that he relented a bit, "No… but, how could he say that? I mean, it sounded like he was making fun of me only training on the weekend."

Understanding, Miu grabbed Kenichi's hand much to his confusion and embarrassment at being so close to the gorgeous girl as she started leading them to Ryouzanpaku, "Do you remember what Naruto-kun told you about his ninja training?"

Not really. Naruto didn't really go over what actually went into his training exercises. He kept those in close.

Even so, Miu wasn't referring to how he trained, she was referring to the circumstances of his training, "He was kept away from his family for years, isolated just so that he could learn Ninjutsu. He's not someone that lived and then decided to take up martial arts. He was basically born into it."

He even said his parents were ninjas. She wondered what kind of people they were, and if they'd ever meet them.

"My point is-." Miu continued, "-I think that's his own way to try and say that this isn't the kind of thing that you can just dip your toes into. And he's kind of right. If you want to be as strong as you say you want to be, you have to be willing to commit yourself to it entirely despite the hardships. It's a way of life."

"But what hardships does he go through?" Kenichi asked, "His training? Or what? Because I've never seen him sweat possibly getting beaten up before."

"Think about this. He's been trying to raid the dojo for years. You've been training with the masters, so what do you think they've done to him to stop him?"

In the past few weeks, Kenichi had been tormented by the insanely intense physical conditioning of Akisame before he'd learned a single Jujitsu move recently. He had been forced into ridiculous stretching exercises and posture exercises to get those things up to par for Chinese Kenpo moves from Kensei. Apachai wanted to teach him Muay Thai, but everyone kept saying that he'd kill him trying to demonstrate techniques.

Kill him just trying to teach him the basic Muay Thai techniques?

Sakaki all things considered was the easiest teacher. He never would have figured that from looking at him.

And Shigure carried all sorts of sharp metal weapons and could use them flawlessly. Enough said.

Good God… no wonder he didn't seem scared of dealing with delinquents.

XxX

(With Naruto)

"I really screwed that one up." Naruto said to himself as he walked the down the sidewalk alone, "Why can't I stop sticking my foot in my mouth?" There was probably a way better way he could have said that handling things Kenichi's way would be hard until he got stronger. This wasn't the time for something like this.

It was just the three of them against potentially an entire gang, and now he'd broken off from them due to his own stupid temper. Miu was there and Miu was worth fifty Kenichis at once so it wasn't that he was worried for now. Maybe he should stay away from Ryouzanpaku for a bit, and he didn't just mean in trying to steal those swords from it.

Wait, quiet reflection time had to end because people were walking down the street his way and they seemed rather organized… and carrying pipes, kendo sticks, chains, and brass knuckles.

Crap.

Leading the way was a young man his height with short dark hair, a long earring in his left ear, and a red headband. He wore a white shirt and a sleeveless open blue shirt over it along with blue shorts and sneakers, "Well I heard that the new 'ninja' on the block had a bit of a tiff with his boyfriend." He said in an extremely carefree way for someone about to get into a fight, "I guess this is as good at time as any to get some brownie points."

But he had a reason. This was one of the strongest freshmen and students in the school period, not counting Naruto himself in his own humble opinion. In other words, this was a pretty tough kid.

"Koga the Kicker." Naruto said in acknowledgement of the boy's presence, getting a wave from him for the trouble, "I'm really not in the mood for this right now. Peddle your bullshit somewhere else and save it for later. If you're not here to take me to Valkyrie, fuck off."

"I'm just curious." Koga said, as his fellow thugs started to spread out a bar off the street in front of Naruto, "I'm wondering how someone can play at being weakling for that long, then smoke someone like Tsukuba, so just chill. I'll bring you to Valkyrie-sama, but not before I kick the dye out of your hair."

"You don't want a piece of me today." Naruto said, glaring at him through his goggles, "Last chance."

"We've got all eyes on you." Koga said, gesturing to every single gang member spread out to keep watch of him, "Tsukuba stooged how you beat him at school before we kicked him out. You're not going to be disappearing on us without someone seeing you. So I can take my time with you."

"I'm not taking my time with you." Naruto said, deciding that now was the time he'd actually have to prepare for an actual encounter. Sliding his left leg forward to turn his body to the side, Naruto extended his left arm in a fist and his right stayed close and in front of his face, index and middle fingers held up in what looked like a hand-seal, "I'm gonna make you look stupid. Last chance."

That actually got the surrounding street punks to start laughing at him openly.

"I'd say you look stupid enough for everyone here! Is that stance for real?"

"Oh, check him out, he's serious!"

Without saying anything, Naruto's right arm darted behind him into one of the pockets on his bag and quickly lashed back out, throwing something at four of the thugs that hit them in the chest and put them on their backs in one move.

"What the hell was that?"

Sticking out of their chests were metal disks with sharpened tips. One for each groove of Naruto's finger to hold them in.

Placing his left hand back in the half-ram seal that he started from, Naruto smirked at the sounds of disbelief and shock that he actually threw shuriken, "Yeah, I'm serious."

"You actually use weapons?" Koga asked, feeling a bead of sweat roll down his brow at the sight of five guys going down in one move, "You killed them!"

"I can't kill someone with a shuriken to the chest you dumbass!" Naruto shouted back in return, "I just threw hard enough to black them out! And everyone else is carrying a weapon but you, so shut the hell up!"

That was right. Koga thought to himself the fact that the others carried weapons because without them they were pathetic.

And here was this kid carrying weapons too. Weird weapons that actually took some skill to use, but weapons nonetheless.

"Heh. Real fighters don't need trick weapons to win!" Koga said, deciding to move in. The closer he was, the less a chance Naruto would try to throw any shuriken since missing would lead to a fatal defeat, "Let's see what you've really got!"

Naruto didn't reach into his bag for more shuriken, instead keeping his left up and his right out. Koga threw his first kick and Naruto sprang back way out of the distance of his reach as the leg swung around, 'Well if his nickname wasn't a dead giveaway…'

Koga was confused by Naruto putting so much distance between them, but figured it was out of fear from the haymaker equivalent of a kick he'd launched at his head to test his defense, "People that dodge like that really don't know how to defend!" With that he rushed forward again and figured that an overwhelming attack would be what would quickly break Naruto, and that was what he liked anyway, "You've got to move forward to attack!"

Naruto anticipated him once again and figured he wasn't going to try the same bullheaded thing twice and he was right, as Koga's first move was to throw a quick rising uppercut of a kick meant to land under his chin, he twisted to the side after he missed and shoved a side kick that again missed as Naruto moved to the side of the maneuver.

This was starting to piss the gang member off. He threw another kick that was aimed at Naruto's midsection and looked like it was going to hit, but it only wound up with him banging his shin off of Naruto's knee and taking multiple rapid short-handed jabs to the face in return.

The quick burst of punches threw off his balance and Naruto further disrupted his stance by sticking his own foot beneath one of Koga's before it touched the ground, from there Naruto simply dropped his center of gravity and used both of his hands in a forceful shove under the chin that landed as hard as a palm strike.

Falling on his backside and almost biting his tongue, Koga seethed and quickly jumped back up to come kicking at Naruto some more, the speed and tempo of his pace picking up as he did so. And Naruto kept moving away, but each time his toes touched the ground from springing just out of range he'd leap back in just as fast before another kick could be rechambered.

Each missed kick came at the cost of Naruto landing repeated short, concise, stinging jabs and short punches with his left hand as he circled around Koga nonstop, keeping him from getting back in front of Naruto to square up his aim. It sucked because each punch was aimed at the exact same spot, just above his eyebrow until it split the skin and started bleeding.

Koga immediately squinted through his left eye that blood dripped down into as he kept missing his faster left-legged kicks from Naruto continuing to move that way faster than he can throw them. He couldn't see, and Naruto was fast enough to hit him on the move without falling prey to his own speed attacks.

'Alright, I gotcha.' Koga thought to himself before going for a jumping spin kick as Naruto's body was moving in the direction of his power leg. He was moving right for a kick coming from that side and there'd be no way to stop his progressive movement. But when his body swung through with the kick he realized that he'd hit nothing but air. It was like Naruto had basically slid around him, moving the opposite direction that he'd spun in, 'How'd he move? There would have been no time to even duck that!'

It was bullshit! He could swear he was hitting Naruto with everything, but his attacks seemed to miss miserably every single time. The last time it was like Naruto blurred through the kick itself and rematerialized after it passed through him.

In reality, Naruto had merely moved back just enough to dodge the toes of Koga's move before replacing himself right back in the original spot. It was simply bouncing back on the toes of his front leg and bouncing forward on the heel of his back leg. But it looked like he hadn't moved since it was such a simple and small movement that didn't disturb the rest of his body.

And once again, Naruto had backed off out of reach of any of his kicks and striking range entirely, "Is that Taekwondo? For a kicker your footwork is terrible if your target doesn't try to standoff with you."

"Why do you keep moving away? You're never going to counterattack with any decent force like that!" Koga shouted at him, getting sick of Naruto repeatedly keeping away from him. He wasn't even trying to stay close enough to try anything once he missed, "This baby scratch doesn't hurt! Is that all you've got?" He pointed at the blood above his eye for emphasis.

"That's not how I fight." Naruto said, standing in his normal stance, "You don't know anything about Ninjutsu do you? The point to how I fight isn't to get close enough to wail on you-."

Koga began to run forward to get into position for assaulting Naruto again, but the first step forward he wound up taking had already seen Naruto take four, and before he took his second step, His head had snapped back and his body flew through the air from a jumping knee kick that slammed off of his chin, "Tadayoudou (Straight Feint)!"

The entire point of Naruto's hand-to-hand was speed and movement, to constantly dart in and out of an enemy's reach and work accordingly before they could react. It was meant to cause havoc amongst packs of enemies and force them into a panic.

When going one-on-one it was meant to pick at a difficult enemy to slow them down with cumulative damage and disrupt their rhythm before backing off and garnering the distance to either draw weapons, or to deliver more crushing strikes once he'd established a definite speed advantage throughout the battle.

His more devastating single attacks usually came from dashing in, and when approaching an attentive enemy, especially head-on, that was dangerous. But no one covered distance in the least amount of moves than Uzumaki Naruto.

That was what the 'Feint' branch of techniques were for. They were supplementary; to misdirect the course of his movements and force the opponent into mistiming their own retaliation attacks.

The Straight Feint was the most direct bread-and-butter approach for his attack movements that was as easy as breathing for him by this point. It was a simple footwork trick of the eye meant to fool the opponent into thinking that they had managed to get the first step on him.

If the opponent thought that he was off they would move to attack, and the moment they did Naruto would theoretically be at least two steps ahead of them to speed ahead and deliver a heavy blow.

The technique wasn't about the attack itself, as he could do literally anything he wanted after he made sure his stride had priority over theirs, it was about the method of movement he used. And the Straight Feint was the most basic of them all.

He actually could have ended that a lot sooner. He could have hit Koga way harder and way faster than the pitter-patter jabs he'd been using. With all of the punches that he landed he actually could have knocked Koga out any time he wanted after he'd dodged the first few kicks, but he needed the practice against a different opponent and he needed a source to vent on after his little argument with Kenichi.

Koga volunteered for all of those jobs by trying his luck against him.

Despite being there for four years he hadn't fought a diverse amount of enemies. He tried to fly under the radar and only fought when he knew he'd get away with it so he didn't really get many tough and well-trained adversaries.

It had been a long time since he'd had a real fight with someone that wasn't Miu and while they were intense they weren't as often as he'd needed to keep himself sharp with most of his moves in combat situations. Shikamaru didn't spar at all anymore so Naruto had to waste entire Ryouzanpaku raids sometimes just as an excuse to train against Miu when he knew she'd wind up confronting him.

Once Koga went out, the remaining two gangsters that weren't knocked by Naruto's previous actions ran away. From their point of view what they'd seen of the final sequence was Koga beginning to run, but before he could even lean forward to pick up speed it looked like he'd bent forward into a projectile being shot into his face with a slingshot.

"Oi, where are you going? You're all done?" Naruto shouted as the remnants of the thugs left, "Well you can keep the shuriken at least! Ain't I a nice guy?"

This wasn't a good thing though despite it being easy enough for him to win without an offensive technique. Even though Naruto hadn't been touched, the entire reason for his moves was to never be touched. But even so, Koga was trained. Not well, but he had actual martial arts talent and experience. And if he was just a grunt and took his orders without a question from Valkyrie, just how skilled a martial artist would that make that person?

Reaching into Koga's pocket, Naruto pulled out a cell phone and immediately went to his contacts, "Lazy-ass doesn't lock his phone." And he even had his boss's number in there under the name Valkyrie. A number that Naruto proceeded to dial, because why would he care? It wasn't his phone.

"_Koga get your ass back to the base. You and your group are the stragglers."_ Oh, it's a girl. Well duh, he should have figured with the whole 'Valkyrie' thing. Norse mythology wasn't his thing though, _"You'd better have something useful for me for being so damn late."_

"Yeah, this isn't Koga." Naruto said. On a random whim that he would later attribute to his bad mood, he opened his mouth without even trying to mimic Koga to get some information. He needed a stress reliever, "This is the guy that just kneed Koga's face flat. Nice to finally talk to the bitch that put a hit out on me and my buddy."

It seemed like 'Valkyrie' didn't know how to respond to such a brazen statement at first before she found her words, _"Apparently Shirahama doesn't have the kind of personality to say any of that to anyone… so I'm guessing this is Uzumaki. You're supposed to be the loudmouth."_

"Yeah, I just wanted to call and say that I'm not really a fan of Slow-Kicker Koga trying to bring a lynch mob to get me." Naruto continued to talk as he walked down the street on the way home, "If that's the best you've got you'd better just call this whole thing off."

He heard her laughing over the phone at his apparent threat, _"Are you calling out one of the Eight Fists of Ragnarok? You're kidding right? Someone's been putting fertilizer on their balls."_

"Well unless you have any better mooks to throw at me you'd better do it yourself because quantity over quality ain't gonna work here."

"_Oh…"_ She sighed before letting out one last laugh, _"This is good. I'm glad you have a backbone, or at least sound like you do without all of the rah-rah hero crap. The way you and Shirahama have been ducking and dodging I figured you two to be cowards."_

"No, we pick our spots." Like after Kenichi learned more offensive techniques to actually fight with. Until then, bluffing and a show of force would have to do for the time being, "Anyway, I just wanted to call and say, 'Whoever you are, I'm thinking of you.'"

"_Oh really now? How sweet-."_

"'-Thinking about all of the ways I'm going to kick your ass.'"

"_I'm going to break your neck when I finally find whatever rock you two pathetic-."_

"Cool story bro."

With that, Naruto hung up the phone with the push of a button and thoughtfully held onto it for a few moments. He felt so much better now. It was amazing how well running your mouth over a decently long distance could help you vent.

That wasn't the best idea he'd ever had though, but at least now she actually had a kind of decent reason to target him instead of just for shits and giggles.

And if it was going to be him being targeted it was obviously going to include someone else too. He thought about that before he proceeded to use the borrowed phone to call Ryouzanpaku's number, because he was not going to be using his own phone for that.

"_Yes? Ryouzanpaku Dojo. Koetsuji Akisame speaking."_

"Hey this is Naruto, and this isn't my phone by the way. I just wanted to ask before Kenichi and Miu get there, are you guys teaching Kenichi more techniques than the ones I saw last week yet?"

"_Why yes. Actually Kenichi has been starting on his second round of techniques with Kensei, Sakaki, and I for around eight days now. I do not think it would be the best idea for Apachai to do so just yet. Why do you ask Naruto-san?"_

Hmm, really now. So things weren't really particularly bleak, just not looking very bright, "Well I kind of wrote a check with my mouth to the Ragnarok Valkyrie chick that I can cash, but he really won't be able to if she's as tough as we think… especially since she's a girl and he's chivalrous."

Admitting something like that to the apparent smartest person he knew was extremely embarrassing. He was certain that the Ryouzanpaku masters already saw him as substituting most of his real-world common sense brains for guts and caginess, but this was just something else entirely.

Akisame either wasn't surprised, or didn't care about that from the way he responded, as evenly pleasant as ever, _"Oh. Well I guess I'll have to use one of my new machines to speed up his physical training so that we have more time for techniques. Thank you for telling us that. By the way, does Kenichi have a family history of heart or lung issues, thinning blood, or any other standing internal ailment that you can think of?"_

That sounded sketchy. What kind of friend would Naruto be if he didn't ask- ,"…Why?"

"_For the training of course."_

"What are you doing to him when I'm not there?"

"_Making progress."_

"…"

"…"

"No he doesn't." Naruto eventually said quietly. He felt like he should have been playing a funeral march for his best friend, disagreement or not.

"_Thank you for that information. Come by again soon." _*click*

"…Am I a bad person for leaving him with those guys?" Naruto thought to himself before throwing Koga's phone over his shoulder. But who else could make a fighter out of him as quickly as they needed it done? He'd be fine. Miu wouldn't let him die. Probably. Whatever. Kenichi was the one that wanted to go in the first place, he just showed him there.

…

Oh he felt terrible about that. Those people were monsters. And now he needed to find out about Ragnarok and hope that Kenichi got good enough to do, more than hold his own, win, and soon. This was getting out of hand.

"Ni~~~nja." Oh God, not him. Niijima had been watching that somehow hadn't he? "I think I've got some information for you that you might want if you're really going to take on Ragnarok instead of leaving town."

XxX

Elsewhere within a somewhat dilapidated apartment building, sitting on a single sofa 'Valkyrie' just stared at the phone in her hand in shock. Did that really just happen? And slowly as the course of her last phone conversation set in, a low growl emanated from her throat.

All of the bodyguards in the nearby vicinity proceeded to back up just in case. She didn't exactly have the best temper when upset.

She smashed the phone onto the hard floor and smashed it with an axe kick, along with the tile beneath it.

The user of the kick was a lithe, slender teenage girl with short, unkempt red hair underneath a green beret. Her clothing of choice was a short t-shirt with a wide collar that revealed the straps of an A-shirt underneath it. Her jeans were tight and frayed on one leg while the other lacked a leg entirely on the right side, exposing her skin up past the thigh.

"Who the hell are these Shirahama and Uzumaki guys?" Valkyrie said to herself as two others came into the room.

"Who are they? Where do come from…?" The first man said as he entered. He was a handsome fellow who had rather tanned skin and long silver hair held in a ponytail. Very easygoing-looking, he wore the blue uniform of the school with one of his hands casually shoved in one of his pockets and his free hand wrapped up to the wrist in bandages, "This I do not know."

The second high school student was a bit taller and more muscular in appearance with frosted brown hair spiking up. He had a scar under the side of his chin and sunglasses on his face and wore a white short-sleeved dress shirt and blue pants, the casual school uniform for Kouryo High School, "Koga got beaten? I'd have loved to have seen that. The bastard never takes anything seriously."

"Koga is a jackass." Valkyrie said, grinding the parts of the phone she'd crushed beneath her boot before she plopped back down on her couch, leaning against the armrest comfortably, legs crossed and leaning over the other, "…Can't even handle a loudmouthed fake ninja."

Seriously, one had just apparently come up as an upstart fighter, being seen as a complete wimp beforehand, and the other just out of the blue destroys one of the lower-level directors of the gang and then one of her Technique Trio, the remainder of which now stood in front of her.

Takeda Ikki and Kozo Ukita respectively.

Takeda shrugged with his free arm in response to Valkyrie's statement, "How do you know he's fake?" He'd heard the rumors that had been spread recently just like everyone else, and had heard Tsukaba's accounts of how he never saw the thrashing he had taken coming, "Who's to say he's not real?"

"Come on Takeda!" Ukita said with a chuckle, "Have you ever actually tried looking for any school in Japan that claimed to teach Ninjutsu? It's a joke."

"If it's a joke…" Valkyrie said tilting her beret down over her eyes, "…The only part about it that'll make me laugh is when we find him and crush him." The loudmouthed shit was going to get his very, very soon. No one took their jabs at Ragnarok and got away with it.

They had an actual gang war to get ready for. The Eight Fists had to gain bodies to throw at the real future problem that would be coming their way for the leaders that were actually talented and had the potential to be absurdly powerful martial artists. Getting sidetracked dealing with two mystery upstarts wasn't what was needed in her neck of the gang.

Yes. She could laugh at the little joke all she wanted after she heard the news that Uzumaki and Shirahama as well as the little strumpet that apparently hung around with them were all pulverized.

That was the only punchline to that joke she wanted to hear.

* * *

**Okay, now it's time for me to come up with all kinds of different branching story ideas to make things intriguing and set up some cool situations. There's a main story point here, but it'll take a little while before it kicks in. Naruto needs to get stronger and grow as a person first, and things need to happen to instigate what I need to happen later.**

**Right now, with Naruto's semi-intentional 'antagonize the gang leader' approach preceding his actual active search for Ragnarok I'm going to force some changes and see how they'll work. And I want most of Kenichi's training scenes to go without saying for the most part unless I really find it appropriate for his character growth, so there will still be scenes like that. It's just that a lot of his early fights were with jabronis so that his personal growth would be seen.**

**Well we ain't got time for stuff like that yet. He needs to get strong enough so that Ragnarok won't torch him because I can't have Naruto hog the fights. He's never been stronger than any opponent he's ever fought anyway so that's definitely workable.**

**Anyway, so far I hope I'm doing this well for what I'm trying to convey, because I actually like what I'm doing. **

**Kenchi out.**


	4. Conflict Builds Character

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I will elbow a valley into the crown of your skull if you bring this up in front of me three times. Everybody gets three.

**Chapter 4: Conflict Builds Character**

* * *

"Niijima, I swear to God. This better be worth every minute I've been here." Naruto said, sitting at a table in a small restaurant across from someone that had been trying to bust out his secret of being a ninja for the better part of the last year, "Now what were you saying about Ragnarok?"

Niijiima Haruo just rubbed his hands together in what he thought was out of eye-shot and turned back around acting normal, "Patience my friend. Are you enjoying your dinner?"

"It's great." And it was, but still, "But I came here for a reason you know."

He could swear he saw a pair of antennae spring up from the dark bowl-cut of Niijima as they conversed, "First tell me. What's your motivation for even being a ninja? A dark vendetta against those that wronged your clan? A taste for battle that can only be quenched from the shadows? What?"

Damn mangas and animes. Did they really give off that impression for the rest of the world to take from them? Maybe if a real high-level ninja was willing to give an interview or something that notion could be dispelled, but pigs would probably fly first.

Naruto had to sigh before looking down at his hands, "I want to be the best ninja in the entire world. A long time ago I made a promise to my parents that I would, and that nothing that ever happened to me, for better or for worse, would ever change that. I promised I'd never let it change who I was or take away the kind of person that they taught me to be. That's why I'm a ninja. Because I want them to be proud of me."

Niijima's next question would have been about his parents to sate his curiosity, but there was a blank look in Naruto's eyes as he spoke. There was something painful there, and he didn't want his new instrument to his eventual world domination to walk out of the door due to being offended.

Instead, Niijima grinned and held up eight fingers, "Valkyrie is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if you defeat her there are seven more after her. Thor, Hermit, Siegfried, Loki, Freya, Berserker, and Odin. Eight of the strongest fighters in the city. How long do you think you can survive before they get you?"

Naruto just smirked as if he were being challenged and he was supposed to be scared or something. Okay, maybe this crazy bastard wasn't the kind of person he was going to be able to get to by scaring him. At least not with this.

There was something though. A weak-point in the armor as it were, "…What about Stupid Kenichi then?"

That was something else entirely. He was training, but could he get ready to fight at that level fast enough?

With a sigh, Naruto set his arms on the table, "Ugh, with some time. He needs time. He can definitely do it. I know he can. But he just needs a little time. A month or two at the rate he's being tortured-, I mean trained, and he can definitely do it considering who's training him."

"And what about you?" Niijima prodded, "You're fine with the situation? Anything I can do to help you buddy?" This was to be the ground level of what would eventually be his enterprise that would take over the world. The golden geese were not to be killed!

Naruto was going to open his mouth to speak again before he realized that nothing Niijima had ever done had been solely for anyone else's benefit. This entire set-up was odd, but because Naruto really had nothing concrete of Ragnarok he didn't want to let a possible contact that could know something about them slip from his grasp. But trying to manipulate Niijima into coughing up something without indirectly giving the alien boy something just as important from his own point of view in return was risky business.

In other words while he was damn certain that he was the bigger snake in this pit, he didn't want a snake with stronger venom to get a bite in on him.

Right now he just needed to get into shape to fight at any time. And he'd be playing his cards as close to the vest as he could. He'd bluff for Kenichi for as long as he could, and try to back up those threats with appropriate action to mask the whole thing until he didn't have to any longer.

"You want to help?" Naruto asked rather cryptically. He needed something good. Something good enough to get Niijima off of his back to make him think he was playing ball, but something that would keep him from playing into Niijima's hands too much for whatever he really wanted from him, "I'll tell you what. Give me your number, and every time I do something to Ragnarok I'll send you a picture or a video."

It was quite obvious that he didn't expect Naruto to do anything like that in the least judging from how he started choking on his beverage and spit it out after hearing it, "Y-You would do that?"

"Whatever you want out of it, you want me and Kenichi to fight Ragnarok." Naruto figured with a shrug, "Well I'm going to see if I can take the fight to them anyway. But I'm going to need a little goodwill from you here, because it's hard to believe that you want to help us out of the goodness of your heart. You know, Koga showed up pretty quickly after I left Kenichi and Miu. I don't even think the echoes from our yells had faded from the air yet."

One of Niijima's pointed ears involuntarily twitched out of nerves, "Hahahaha… what are you saying? Why would I spread information about your argument on purpose so that Ragnarok would pick up on your trail?"

"I didn't say that. You did." Naruto said, feigning seriousness that was just beyond what was real. He wanted to laugh since he had Niijima hook, line, and sinker. The most important part of all of this was the walking away, which was what he did, picking up his backpack and leaving.

He didn't want to leave such a good bowl of ramen behind, since that restaurant had a mean ramen, but this had to work.

Come on Niijima. You had that brain and PDA full of random info. Give him something good from it so that he didn't leave.

"Valkyrie's name is Nanjou Kisara! Taekwondo user"

"Interesting." Naruto said in a sarcastic deadpan while walking to the front door. Niijima got up to follow him out since he knew if Naruto got outside without him being there he'd disappear. The way he scrambled over his own chair and paid for his own food and Naruto's without waiting for change after dropping twice the needed amount almost got Naruto to laugh, but he needed his poker face on.

He needed something better than that. He could have figured that out himself with a little digging beyond the surface. Hell, he could have figured that out the next day in school if he wanted to! A good contact didn't tell him things that he could find out without any help. He needed something special. Something only Niijima could get for him.

"I've got stats on Ikki Takeda and Kozo Ukita, 'The Puncher' and 'The Thrower' of the skill trio!"

"Divisional underlings from our school? Now you're definitely insulting me." He could have gotten that too. Niijima needed to bring his A-game or this conversation was going to be over.

"Please wait! Hear me out!" Naruto reached for the door and Niijima desperately dove for him to keep him from leaving, eyes closed desperately in his effort to keep a lynchpin of his endeavors from falling out of the slot.

Ha! Success! He got a hold of him right around the body!

"EEK!"

Man, Naruto screamed like a girl when he was caught… and was pretty shapely for a guy… and had boobs that his head was currently pushing up against.

…Well that wasn't anatomically correct at all.

"What does that creep think he's doing to Hibiki?"

"Get him off!"

Opening his eyes and looking up, Niijima found himself holding onto an older girl with curly blonde hair wearing a zip-up top in white and a soft pastel blue with a skirt in the same kind of color blue. Just outside of the restaurant there were seven more girls wearing a similar outfit with some having their extra color to their outfit being soft pink, soft blue, or one that stood out as a soft yellow.

None of them looked happy, and all of them were branching weapons like nunchucks, a whip, a flail, a chain with a weight on the end, a pair of tessen, a pair of sai, a bo staff, tonfa, and did that one have a spear?

Niijima didn't even bother trying to beg off and apologize. Girls with weapons? That would have just been wasted breath. Instead he quickly turned to run through the back of the restaurant in order to escape certain death, 'Where did Naruto goooo!?'

"Don't let him get away with that! Valkyries, kill that groping demon!"

From outside, Naruto stood across the street leaning against a street light as he proceeded to watch all eight of those weapon-wielding girls go in and pursue Niijima, damn the costs. He'd get away. If Niijima was going to get his ass kicked for something that he did to piss someone off it would have happened already. That guy was tops at running away.

"It was his fault." Naruto said under his breath to himself as he started to walk away with his arms thrown up behind his head relaxingly, "He tried to grab me from behind. So I substituted with something." He couldn't help his reflexes. When people tried to grab him he'd and replace himself with the closest thing nearby similar in size, "Blame Ryouzanpaku's masters."

So either this would tell Niijima to stop holding out on him or he'd just keep doing that each time he tried to pawn crap information onto him, or it would get Niijima to go out and get some real intel if he actually wanted something from Naruto badly enough. Carrot and stick.

This time around those Valkyrie chicks were the stick. And spear. And lots of other weapons.

Wait, that was a gang of older girls called Valkyries? He thought there was only one. This was making his head hurt. Why didn't Niijima tell him _that_ instead of all of the other stuff that he either already knew or could have figured out in five minutes in the hallway tomorrow at school?

Ugh, he was not going back to deal with that tonight. As he walked down the street he turned back to the restaurant across the road and saw one lone girl outside staring at him in return, getting him to stop and return fire so to speak. She wasn't really glaring at him, but she was giving him a straightforward and stern enough look to rub him the wrong way. He didn't like being sized up.

But that was counteracted by the fact that she was very pretty. Exotic almost with her darker-toned skin. She had short, messy brown hair and a thin scar running across her left cheek, and her body was rather curvaceous and toned from what he could see through her clothes. She had an eye-like pendant around her neck and wore a blue spandex pants and a tight light blue sleeveless shirt underneath an open orange jacket.

She got extra points for the color of the jacket because it was great, and because she was a hot older woman. But the lack of any discernable expression on her face didn't really sit well with him.

Naruto freed one hand from behind his neck and waved at her across the street with a grin on his face before turning back around and starting to head home.

The girl just continued to stare at him as he walked away until the rest of the Valkyries came up behind her looking quite upset at some sort of misfortune, "We couldn't catch that weird, handsy high school guy that groped Hibiki-chan. He was really fast."

By then they noticed that their apparent leader was staring at something that was already gone, "Freya-sama, what's the matter?"

The newly identified Freya turned to her underlings and pointed to the door of the restaurant where the incident had started, "Do you know that you just let Kisara's target walk right past you? He used you for a misdirection trick on the boy that you chased away." They looked shocked and then a bit enraged at that new revelation, "I'm aware that it's a divisional Ragnarok problem instead of a group-wide one, but you girls should be more attentive."

"Yes Freya-sama." They all said together with varying degrees of embarrassment at being gently admonished by one of the Eight Fists of Ragnarok in charge of them.

As they all went back inside to try and settle the scene down and get the meal that they had originally come there to get in the first place, Freya had to think to herself, 'I didn't even notice him coax Hibiki-chan into his old position. How smooth was that?'

The only reason she knew what he'd done to begin with and didn't fall for the same ploy as the rest of the Valkyries was because she'd been the farthest away and had the best view of him walking away like nothing had happened. The others didn't even know that he was there, if they'd even be able to recognize him on sight at all. He was rather nondescript.

Hibiki had been the one to open the door and she still didn't notice him move right past her. They had gone through the exit at the exact same time! Admittedly, Freya didn't even notice what he'd done to somehow guide her underling into his old spot without alerting anyone else.

As she led the way back into the restaurant and raised her hand to open the door she revealed a black glove on her hand with the Roman numeral for III on the back of it, 'Interesting.'

XxX

(The Next Day – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Progress was steady.

Not really. Progress was really, really rushed. By the standards of anyone.

"Again." Sakaki said as he stood arms crossed, sternly watching Kenichi go through the techniques that he was teaching him. He had to pick and choose wisely what he was trying to give him to learn because apparently all of the masters with the exception of Shigure and Hayato wanted their bit of time to teach him something. He'd learned several moves from multiple styles, and even though they weren't that complex they didn't have to be.

The sheer versatility of having beginner moves from three different styles of fighting with markedly different principles behind them would make him a threat to any intermediate in one single style. Karate, Jujitsu, Chinese Kenpo, and Muay Thai.

Though all he really knew in that regard was the stance and how to move in it. No one felt it was safe enough for him to learn more in that one. Once everyone figured that Apachai wouldn't kill him trying to teach Muay Thai or beat him senseless every time they hit pads he'd really have four styles that he'd know the beginning aspects of.

Kenichi stood in front of Sakaki in his base Karate stance before lunging forward with his left foot at his current teacher with a stiff starter punch, but Sakaki just blocked it easily. He still smiled though, as he felt the punch aimed at his midsection land solidly, "Good use of Yamazaki. Remember to conceal that second punch for when your opponent blocks. They'll normally leave their body open if they believe they'll be hit in the face."

Backing off with a look of some accomplishment on his face, Kenichi wiped his brow and made sure that the band-aid under his eye hadn't come off from his sweating yet. He stood at the ready awaiting his next exercise, but before Sakaki could say anything he was interrupted.

"That's all the time you get for today with Kenichi." Kensei said as he walked out into the field, hands hidden by his sleeves behind his back as Sakaki glared at him, "You know the drill by now. Don't pout."

"I don't pout!" Sakaki said before looking at Kenichi one last time and patting him on the shoulder, "Just remember to keep drilling the moves you've learned until you can do them without having to think. That's the only way you truly become a powerful martial artist; when things like this become second nature."

"That's good advice." Kensei pointed out before smirking, "His _teacher_ should probably be the one giving him advice during his turn with him though."

"Tough shit! I'll tell him what I want!"

While his two masters began to bicker, Kenichi chose to take a momentary rest on the wooden exterior floor of the dojo where Miu had been sitting and watching, "Everyone seems really excited to teach you Kenichi." She said as he took a load off for just a moment, "Have you ever thought of training here full-time?"

He had thought about it. It had been on his mind ever since Naruto had gone off on his own the evening before. And it still stuck in the back of his head, "Do you really think I should?"

"Well, it really depends on how far into this you want to go." Miu said, trying to be helpful and smile, "The stronger you want to be, the more time you'll have to devote to your training."

"…And if I wanted to be as strong as… Naruto, or you?"

Miu put a lot of thought into that question. She didn't know quite how long that would take, but she knew one thing for sure. No matter what, what he was doing now wouldn't be enough to catch up in one-hundred years, "Since regular fighters only train a few hours a day, if that, the way you do now, if you ever wanted to catch up you'd have to live here 24 hours a day for the sake of your training!"

What? He was already training every single day during evenings, but 24 hours a day? He'd have to move out of his home? Away from his family? He would literally have to breathe, eat, and sleep martial arts nonstop!

"_I don't have time to sit around and wait!"_

If he didn't, he would never become strong enough to start catching up or measuring up to Miu who seemed so strong every time she ever demonstrated any skill in front of him. And Naruto, who didn't need to wait and hide from anyone. Kenichi knew his character, and knew that the wait-and-see approach with Naruto was highly unpopular.

"Do you think I should?" Kenichi eventually asked, drawing a confused look from the delightful blonde girl, "Live here to train I mean. I'll still be going to school, and I won't be that far away from my family. But…" It was too big of a decision to make right now. He'd been training for a little over a month and a half.

Miu just put a hand on his arm once she heard him fretting, and that stopped him cold. Geez, why was her smile so disarming? It just wasn't fair, "I think Kenichi is brave for doing what he's done so far. You can go as far as you want to. I believe in you."

Nearby, Kensei and Sakaki had stopped their bickering enough to hear the conversation from Kenichi and Miu. This could be really good, but for now they needed Kenichi to actually fight. Naruto's full-court press approach of going ahead and getting his battles with Ragnarok over with was fine for him, but Kenichi needed some battle experience before they could begin teaching him more. He needed to see what he was capable of, to see what his training could actually do for him.

But to do that they needed to guide him into a fight or several, and the only one that was seemingly chomping at the bit to get himself into a scrum was someone that they couldn't really find.

At least until now.

When Naruto attacked Ryouzanpaku they never followed him to his home after they knocked him out and threw him out because no one knew when he'd get back up. But now they knew where he went to school, and while he could notice most of them following him easily enough to find a way to lose them or lead them in a circle there was one person that it was already proven he wasn't an expert at outright detecting.

Even then, if they found his house by that manner it would probably piss him off or scare him more than convince him to play ball.

"Sakaki…"

"I know. Let's go talk to Shigure."

"You go talk to Shigure. Now's my time to train Kenichi."

"Damn it."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – With Naruto – Evening)

It was time to go hunting. Or tracking in this case. It wasn't hard to find Ragnarok chumps outside of the area by Naruto's school. They were in a current mode of trying to recruit people that might have been tough or smashing the ones that decided that they would rather not join.

All he had to do was walk around until he found a street fight going on and hide until it was over. That was easy. If he couldn't do that, what kind of ninja was he? But none of them led him to any bosses. They'd just patrol around until late, call in, and never go back to any definite hiding place.

So whoever was giving them their marching orders was decent.

So it was time to go to someone who was smarter than him, way smarter than him, and see what he had to say about it.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

An apartment door opened up to reveal casual black eyes that sighed at the sight of Naruto in the early evening dark, "Go away Naruto, I'm telling you nothing's changed about that mission."

"I'm not here for that." Naruto assured him with his hands held up defensively, "Honest. I promise. Just hear me out, okay?"

Shikamaru stared at him long and hard for a good while before he eventually moved and went outside, shutting his door behind him, "Okay, I'm listening. What do you have? What's going on? Knowing you it's some kind of troublesome problem."

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On what you know about Ragnarok."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at him and shook his head, "Oh man, don't tell me you've heard of these guys too?" Naruto's eyes lit up at learning that Shikamaru knew about these people, "Yeah, I know a bit about them, but not everything. Not even close. Mostly because I don't care. I know enough to help me stay away from them."

"And if I was trying to go toward them?" Naruto asked, hinting at Shikamaru, "People know I'm a ninja at my school now, so now Ragnarok wants a piece of me. But if I beat the boss at my school that'll just make it worse."

Smart man. Well, smarter than Shikamaru had given him credit for in regards to thinking ahead in more than just a fight, "And you want me to give you some kind of heads up on what I know so that you can handle business at your school, or at least do it somewhere else to soften the boss at your school up?" Naruto nodded and Shikamaru smirked at proving that he was right.

Misdirection was Naruto's thing after all. He had a serious penchant for trying to confuse the hell out of whomever he was fighting, even at times like this. Naruto's long-term strategies didn't really go much further than doing whatever he thought was smart that most people would not see coming.

At least this was getting him off of that impossible Ryouzanpaku mission. While he was still stirring up trouble, it was better than stirring up trouble that he definitely couldn't handle. He'd rather Naruto fight a gang war against people their age than fight those scary masters. It was by far the lesser of two evils.

"Alright, give me some time." Shikamaru said, rubbing the back of his head lazily, "I hear things just like everybody else, but I need some time to figure out what's real and what's not so give me a bit."

A massive smile spread over Naruto's face as he extended a hand for Shikamaru to shake. Shikamaru rolled his eyes, but he still couldn't help but smile too and shook it, "It's good to have you back Shika. I missed you."

"Yeah, yeah. I figure listening out for stuff I was going to hear anyway is better than a suicide mission." Shikamaru said as he went back into his apartment, "I'm not back though. I told you already, I'm done being a ninja. It's too troublesome."

After he shut the door, Naruto just let out a sigh and went along his merry way. It was a start. He'd been trying to get Shikamaru actively back into the game for quite some time. So if any silver lining existed around this Ragnarok cloud it would be a chance to see if he could get his partner back into action.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Naruto stood in the dojo building in his stance facing off with Miu in their respective stances. Kenichi was watching intently as his best friend and the secret (yeah right) object of his affection faced off in a tense staredown.

Well, it was tense for him. He was basically holding his breath. The master currently in charge of training him in Akisame wanted him to watch two other fighters in the middle of combat so he could soak in the experience of watching a fight for once instead of just being the one caught up in it.

He'd been getting in more than a few tiffs with the street-level goons of Ragnarok a lot more these days. It was confusing Kenichi because he was still following Naruto's direction in how to move around the neighborhood and hide while in school, but in school it seemed like it was the only place he'd definitely be able to duck them.

Sometimes it seemed like Naruto would just walk them into a gaggle of thugs on accident and shrug harmlessly at his mistake.

"_Oops."_

He swore that the masters and his best friend were out to kill him somehow. But Miu was apparently fine with it as it was building his experience. So busy with fighting his own one or two at a time, Kenichi never really got to see what Miu and Naruto did to beat their enemies. But now he had the chance.

Miu had a smile on her face, dressed in a keikogi over her usual tight purple outfit, and Naruto was still wearing his clothes from school that day, sans shoes of course, but with backpack on him as always. What was with that thing? He wasn't smiling though, and his eyes were locked right on hers, blue on blue.

The thing was, Naruto and Miu hadn't ever sparred before. They'd always just tried to take each other's heads off. So this was kind of new to the both of them. Miu was excited, and Naruto was too, but he kept thinking that Fuurinji Hayato would bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man and throw him to the horizon the second they started, whether he could gain the upper-hand or not.

Pavlovian conditioning was a bitch.

"I think you know what you can and can't do Naruto-san." Akisame said as he was overseeing the would-be 'spar'.

Naruto didn't even let him know he'd heard anything, as both he and Miu were as still as statues, confusing Kenichi, "Why haven't they attacked yet? They've been like that for a while?"

Akisame just smiled over at his student and held a hand to his chin while he explained, "Both of them have fought each other so much that they're used to each other's moves to an extreme degree. When two people are this familiar with each other, one doesn't want to make the mistake of telegraphing a move that the other already knows about to leave themselves open."

How intense. And with that Kenichi found himself hyperfocusing on the two would-be opponents. Whoever made the first move would be at a disadvantage.

*Mewl*

Miu's eyes lit up at the sound of the kitten coming from outside before she realized that it was way too convenient for a cute little kitty to be outside. By then though, Naruto had made it to her front left corner of vulnerability and had attempted several fast, real speed and power punches that she was forced to block before retaliating with a flipping kick and forcing him out of range, "That was so mean Naruto-kun! That sounds real!"

"Ha! You're still a sucker for me throwing my voice?" Naruto gloated with a grin as he got as still as a statue once more to await an opening or a chance, "At least this time it didn't end up with you in a snare trap!"

This time Miu would take the initiative, being careful in her approach to attack. If she spooked him prematurely without cornering him he'd just stay out of her range until the spar time ended. Fighting indoors gave her the advantage.

Still though, this was Naruto, and if she wasn't fast in how she moved around he would eat her alive. But if she was too fast to move he'd still punish her as long as he knew where she was going.

Miu's approach had Naruto darting all over the open-doored dojo, but one of the rules of the spar was that he could not go outside or get too nasty. Way to tie his hands, not that he didn't have sparring etiquette. She was hitting air, but mostly wanted to see which direction he was partial to moving in. Something that Kenichi found difficult to pay attention to.

Each time Miu threw a punch, as she didn't dare kick at Naruto without being certain she'd have a good chance at hitting him, Naruto looked like he'd dodge one way but instead appear right at her side on the other. He had to rub his eyes to make sure his brain wasn't skipping a few frames in this movie.

"I can't tell how he's going to move, even when I watch his legs." Kenichi pointed out, feeling like the world a treadmill in one direction and Naruto was moving against it in every direction, "How can he do that?"

"It's advanced footwork. Many styles have certain steps. For example, Boxing has advanced footwork meant to fool opponents as well, but Naruto-san's is rather complicated."

"How so?" He could see that Naruto's body would move in directions that weren't always consistent with where his legs wound up taking him, but it always seemed so… smooth. Sure of himself. Kenichi was envious honestly.

"It didn't used to be so effective." Akisame said, dredging up older memories of his time there, "When he was younger there were certain moves he couldn't make without looking at the ground first, and Miu used that to track his movements and defeat him. It took him quite a while to keep from overwhelming himself."

But Naruto's eyes were up and ahead now, and he was feeling sassy and on the run, "Come on, hit me. You know you can. Don't make me move first!" In return she just stuck her tongue out at him. With that, Naruto moved forward again and picked the other front corner of vulnerability to attack Miu from. But he wasn't going to try and take her backside no matter what. Not a chance.

Naruto's hand-seal hand finally moved, shifting to a seal where his index and pinky were extended while his thumb pointed forward. He blew into the space open between his middle and ring fingers to send a white dust flying into the air, "Metsubushi (Eye Closer)!"

Kenichi gasped in shock at Naruto actually using some kind of blinding agent in the middle of a fight against Miu, "That's not fair! He's blinding her?" His protective side wanted to jump up and do something about it, but a stern look from Akisame kept him from doing so, "You're going to let him cheat like that?"

He didn't think that Naruto would be the type to fight in such a manner. He didn't seem like someone that would use a dirty trick like that to defeat an opponent, especially a friend, and especially during a spar.

But to his surprise, Miu just looked annoyed that she'd been hit with it, cringing before smiling again when Naruto popped her body with several punches prompting her to get back to defending herself.

"Naruto-san _is_ a ninja." Akisame pointed out as the two continued to spar, "He obtains victory by any means he sees fit to win. What exactly did you think Ninjutsu techniques entailed? Tricks and maneuvers of opportunity to secure an advantage. But he would never truly try to blind Miu… during a spar at least."

Naruto went for a half-sweep, but stopped his leg and stood up with the other one to shove it forward in a kick that Miu countered with a kick of her own. Naruto bent his front arm to block with his forearm and spun around to give a spinning elbow that Miu ducked.

Her duck turned into a powerful leg sweep that almost knocked Naruto entirely upside down, but posting himself up on his hands he flipped through and landed back on his feet as Miu lunged directly at him with a confident smile. She figured he'd recover from her sweep, as the balance that Naruto's fighting style granted him made it very hard to ruin his stability and sense of dexterity, "Caught you Naruto-kun."

"Crap…"

Now that she was close, Miu sent one-armed barrages of punches his way that Naruto seemed to ghost through due to his deceptive foot motions. But he wasn't as cocky any longer. She knew how to overcome that mind trick and he knew it, so he just had to hope she used the one he was prepared to handle.

She punched forward and let Naruto step back only to place her punching hand on the ground so she could lithely bend the lower half of her body forward to deliver a pair of splitting scissor-kicks that was meant to crown the top of Naruto's head. Kenichi then promptly wiped his nose from the light bleeding it did upon thinking about her flexibility.

Naruto put his one arm up to block with, taking the pounding of the kicks with a grit to his teeth until Miu pulled them back down and underneath her body to kick his legs out. Naruto merely chose to swan-dive and safety roll over her instead of risking a feint that she was probably ready for.

After missing those kicks, Miu didn't skip a beat and twisted her body beneath her to get into a four-point stance before rushing at Naruto who was still mid-roll. He didn't bother turning around once he got up, instead running forward until he reached the wall with Miu still in hot pursuit.

Defying gravity, Naruto jumped at the wall and started running horizontally on it until he reached an upper corner and posted himself up in it, smirking down at Miu who stopped herself from chasing him farther, "Oh, you're so lucky I'm not wearing shoes or I'd have been running laps around these walls."

Neither of them moved from that spot so Akisame called it off, "That's enough."

Miu got up out of her stance and stretched her arms over her head while Naruto stayed in the corner with his three points of contact, feet and one hand, holding him up there, still with his free hand in the half-ram seal in front of his face, "Chalk dust?" Miu asked, referring to the powder Naruto blew at her earlier, "It's harmless."

"Yeah, right?" Naruto said as he stayed up in the corner, crossing both of his arms smugly over his chest, "It was all I had on me for it other than the chili powder since that would only blind you for a little while. I went for the one that wouldn't make you claw your eyes out though."

"You still fight like a jerk." She teased when he dropped down, the both of them walking over to where Kenichi was sitting down. Naruto plopped down cross-legged on the floor while Miu sat on her knees, "I didn't even see you reach for the bag."

"Pssht, I'm not fighting you fair." Naruto said dismissively, "And I'm not getting behind you either. You defend yourself better from behind than you do from the front…" He then noticed Kenichi looking at him strangely, "What's the matter?"

"The way you fought." Kenichi groused, deriding Naruto's lack of sporting martial arts pride.

"Oh come on! I didn't even cheat that badly! I did two things that _might_ have been cheating!" There was no way he was going to battle anyone he took as a threat without doing something, anything, akin to what he'd tried twice in that spar to get an advantage. Just because he couldn't do everything didn't mean he couldn't try anything.

"The dust?" The boy with the band-aid on his face said suspiciously.

"That's a real Ninjutsu that takes practice and timing!" Naruto said, proud of his hard-earned underhanded skills, "She's fine with it."

"I'm used to it." Miu said with a sly look, saying that she wasn't fine with it, but things like that had happened so much it didn't really matter anymore, "But if a move works than it has merit." And just like that she perked up, pumping a fist in the air, "Now it's your turn. Do you want to spar with me or with Naruto-kun!" She left the choice up to Kenichi, happily waiting on his decision.

And Kenichi gulped for two separate reasons. He could either fight Miu or he could fight Naruto. So it was take on a girl that he couldn't touch even if he was of the mind to fight with women, or fight someone else he couldn't beat and risk getting something underhanded done to him in the course of the match.

"You should make your choice." Akisame warned Kenichi with a gleam in his eye, "If you don't I'll make the decision for you… and my decision will be both at once."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Kouryo High School)

"Gardening Club?" Naruto said to himself as he walked through the halls alone, "No thanks. I've got plants at home to take care of. Don't need to take care of the school's too."

Kenichi was a member of that club, and their little argument from a week ago had more or less become water under the bridge. He couldn't stay pissed at his friend just for having a different point of view than him. One of them liked to look for trouble when it was coming their way, the other liked to go around it if he could.

But either way, with the end of school brought time for mandatory club activities again, and Naruto still didn't have one. Kenichi had taken up gardening which was something peaceful that he liked. Good for him. And a day or two Daimonji tried to pick a fight with him in the club by smashing the place up. Bad idea for him, because Kenichi basically took out the trash in one move, decisively this time.

So he was coming along. At least now he could whip Daimonji's ass without any kind of trouble, but as he had always said from the start; Daimonji was trash that didn't really know how to fight. He had always just been bigger than everyone else.

Their concerns weren't with the scrubs though. Naruto had pissed off the big boss so to speak. So it was just a matter of time.

In the meantime, he needed a club or he'd start suffering the consequences for it from the school. But they were all so terrible! He'd have played a sport, but there wasn't any sport he liked enough to waste time he could have been using to train.

Now, what did he like? Because whatever this school had wasn't it.

Gardening Club was a resounding no. There weren't many students there. A handful. And even if Kenichi was in that club too, it was a total buzzkill. He needed stimulation!

Okay, how about something a bit more useful to him?

Maybe Cross-Country Club? The training he had to do in order to just learn ninjutsu was so intense as a child that most of the others only did the bare minimum after it was no longer deemed necessary. It was meant to shock their cardiovascular systems into keeping up with the method of movement that they used.

Naruto believed that being traumatized by the long stretches of miles that they had to run at such young ages was what led to Shikamaru being so passive.

He on the other hand kept up that exact same crushing program to this day that would make some adult marathon runners look like lazy-asses. He'd dominate Cross-Country Club, _and_ he could use it to completely eliminate conditioning from his training regimen altogether by doing extra miles to more accurately fit with the way he'd be training at home anyway.

That was something wasn't it? Yeah, and it would help him save more time in his day for other things! More time training or dare he say it some down time? An impossible dream!

"Alright! Now my grades won't get screwed by report card time!" Naruto cheered to himself out loud. His grades really didn't need any help getting lower right now, "Problem solver!" These weren't really ninja problems… actually they were since most ninjas his age would be out in the world by now anyway, so yes, he was still a ninja problem solver.

"Grr… shut up! You made me lose my game you blowhard jackass! I was in an online match!"

Naruto passed by an open doorway where a handheld gaming device was thrown at his head. He ducked it, forcing it to fly past him and smash off of the wall. He was not amused.

"Oh, I'm sorry that you're such a bitch you can't let a guy enjoy a moment!" Naruto said, sticking his head into the classroom where he'd just been berated from by some girl. He probably wouldn't have taken it so hard if she hadn't decided to fling electronics at his head. People tended to take offense to that, "Maybe you just lost because you suck!"

Some rather pretty red-haired girl wearing a beret and jeans with one leg had been the one doing the yelling from where she'd been lazing around on top of one of the room's desks. Instead of sneering at him angrily as he'd expected her to when he looked inside she was just staring at him owlishly, as if she knew him and didn't expect to see him or something.

"…" Naruto just stared right back at her until it started getting to him and he squinted his eyes at her to convey how uncomfortable he was, "Do I know you or something? You're looking at me like we're familiar with each other."

'Goggles, yellow hair, stupid look on his face when curious, loudmouth with a penchant for cursing, and a distinct lack of attempted chivalry.' All of that seemed familiar, and the sound of his voice did as well, 'Oh no, this is just too perfect. After all of that searching one of them just drops into my lap?'

"Oi, you okay?"

Hearing his voice again snapped her out of her reverie, giving her the clarity of mind to stand up and walk over to the door, "You know, you've been making a lot of ruckus lately." The girl said with a smirk on her face that didn't promise anything good.

That manifested itself in the form of a kick as quick as a skilled fighter's jab shooting out at his head. An unprepared Naruto felt his nose be brushed by the attack as he jumped out into the hallway.

As the girl stood in the hallway, five other punks stepped out from behind her all smirking at Naruto and trying to intimidate him with cracking their knuckles and shadow boxing, "More Ragnarok?" Naruto asked rhetorically, "Can I get a name to the ass I'm about to kick?"

"Oh you're definitely him." The girl said, grinning while tilting her beret over her eyes, "And I guess I can introduce myself so you'll have a name in mind when you wake up in intensive care. Nanjou Kisara. Valkryie: The Eighth Fist of Ragnarok."

"So would that make you the strongest or the weakest?"

"It makes me the newest!"

The second she yelled at him, Naruto immediately started in on her bodyguards without warning or mercy. He didn't have to stand there and listen to her, and while the others were he managed to take down three in rapid succession before the others caught up to the situation and attacked. By that time Kisara had already made her move on him, jumping swiftly through the air mercilessly.

At the time, Naruto had managed to take down his latest target by the back and finish him by slamming his forehead into the floor. But quickly got off of his downed foe's back due to Kisara's speedy attack aimed at him. Instead of pulling back off of it and opening herself up for a counter from an opportunistic Naruto, she went through with a driving kick that stuck into her subordinate's stomach.

Using that as leverage to do more, she launched herself at Naruto faster than her first jump much to his surprise, for multiple reasons, and lashed out with a quick kick that hit him in the face and knocked him into the wall.

Naruto spun with the direction of the kick to take away some of its power since he couldn't prevent it from hitting. He grit his teeth from the kick and spit blood out on the ground.

Even with the blood, he wasn't that hurt compared to the guy that Kisara had literally stepped on to get to him. The poor guy had been out cold when Naruto had gotten through with him, but the shock and pain from Kisara's kick woke him back up. He shouted out and turned over before vomiting heavily on the floor, nearly crying from the pain of having her nearly crush his stomach.

"What the hell was that supposed to be!?" Naruto shouted, blood still trailing from his lip a bit, "That was your own man! You nearly killed the guy! Just to kick me once!"

He was a ninja, but he'd never use someone that was supposed to be on his side just to land one blow. He had so few people that he could rely on or trust in the slightest… how could he do something like that and look them in the eye again?

"But it worked." Kisara said, hands on her hips uncaringly as she glanced back at the injured gang member she'd put in that state, "The only use he had after you ran through him in a second was to help me get to you. Weaklings don't get to pick and choose what happens to them." With a snap of her fingers she got the attention of all of the others remaining, "Go get as many of us as you can find. We've got this bastard now, and he isn't running."

"You should have made 'em stay." Naruto said with a growl in his voice as the Ragnarok cannon fodder left to go get more, "Now you don't have any more meat shields to sacrifice, and you've got to take me on all by yourself."

It was tough talk, but that kick was on a completely different level from Koga's. His kicks, though stronger than a normal person's, were sloppy and straightforward. These were faster, and she'd hit him right in the cheek from a move she'd altered on the spot. She'd called an audible on an attack and still rattled his skull. These were the kicks of a specialist.

Kisara seriously wanted to smash his face on the bottom of her footwear, but talent was talent, and toughness was toughness. He took a jumping kick from her that he hadn't even been prepared to take and remained standing the entire time.

"Do you want to join Ragnarok?" Kisara offered with a smirk and a sweeping gesture of her hand to reveal black gloves with an 'VIII' across the backs of them, "We've got control of the city, and there are supposed to be big plans in the works for us. You can't win this war, so why not hitch up on the winning side and help us get ready for the real battle?"

"So you can step on me the second you see the chance?" Naruto sneered, eyes flickering to the Ragnarok member crawling away from the scene, still holding his stomach and covered in his own bile, "No thanks. I'll stick with people that are my real friends." That bitch had just kicked him in the face with steel-toed boots. Why would he join her?

The sound of multiple footsteps came from the direction behind Kisara in the hall and in short order she was joined by a slew of even more underlings than she'd started with, "Well about those friends, where would you say they are now?" She said as they started forming a wall of sorts in front of her to begin moving on Naruto, "Because for people that you're willing to get your ass kicked for, they sure as hell aren't here. You won't last a minute."

At the end of the hallway behind Naruto, Niijima was hiding behind the corner watching the entire thing, 'No, why the hell isn't he running? That's got to be ten guys!' That ninja couldn't get himself destroyed here! A ninja, a real-life ninja could be the greatest boon to his world-domination plans to date!

There had to be something he could do.

Wait. Kenichi was trained, or was training. And he was still in the school in his afterschool club. Those two were supposed to be best friends, so that could work! And that Miu girl was in the Gymnastics Club to boot! She'd definitely show up!

'Hold on you stupid ninja!' Niijima thought to himself as he ran off at breakneck speed to find one or the other, 'There's strength in numbers! Strength in numbers!'

"You think just because you've got a bunch of mooks to put between you and me that this is gonna be enough?" Naruto said out loud meanwhile at his current predicament while he wiped the blood from his lip, "Let me tell you, you get one of those. I dare you to kick me like that again."

"What are you going to do ninja-boy?" Kisara taunted as her men blocked off as much of the hall between Naruto and her as they could while moving forward, "Dressing in black pajamas and running around making weird sign language symbols isn't really going to win you any fights." They ran forward to begin pounding away on him, but Naruto didn't turn and run the way they expected him to with the open hall at his back.

"Yeah, because running your mouth and hiding behind 'The Expendables' here is really gonna win this for you." Naruto said, drawing a quick fistful of shuriken that prepared to throw before realizing that even if he didn't get in as much trouble for fighting, if he pulled out sharp metal weapons in school he was going to get kicked out. Thus he stuck them back into his bag. Not here.

Instead of trying it as they were now closer than before, Naruto simply ran right forward into the mass of humanity before him and ducked through the first few before they tried to punch at him. They could swear they had him dead-to-rights, but someone would inexplicably wind up in the path of their punch so they wound up hitting their own guys and missing Naruto entirely.

Apparently, trying to hit one person in close even though they had the numbers edge was very difficult when he knew what he was doing, because he made it through entirely untouched, 'Don't underestimate Ninjutsu!'

Kisara saw all of this, as instead of bolting straight through he intentionally stopped and started to spook her men. Thus she was fully prepared when she was him bypass all of her gang members to go right at her, 'Cheeky fucker is fast.' She didn't have time to be surprised. She merely smirked at the show of skill and jumped at him when she did the same to her, "Well dodge this!"

Naruto saw that she was anticipating him coming in the entire way and went wide-eyed before altering his jump into a slide along the slick tiles of the floor. Kisara went flying overhead with a kick that would have been aimed right at his skull, and he wasn't about to get into a jump-kicking duel with a Taekwondo practitioner from what he knew about them.

With a screech of shoes on the floor, Naruto stopped himself and prepared to go back after her when the same Ragnarok members he'd gotten past the first time charged him again.

Naruto appeared to jump back, and all of them went after him to chase him down. With his second step back, Naruto jumped to the side to push off of the wall and lash out with a kick to the face that hit three people before the last one got close enough to punch him.

Naruto's used his left hand as a starting point to spin around the punch and his opponent's entire body, as if he was gliding across the floor until he reached the back of the fighter's head and prepared to finish him until he saw Kisara throwing another series of rapid-fire kicks with one leg from his peripheral vision.

He lifted an arm to block and did so, but the force of her kick made him spin, 'Goddamn it! I can't focus on her!' Two more heavy kicks followed and Naruto felt like someone had swung a baseball bat at his guard, 'Ugh!'

His back against a wall, Naruto looked at his left arm and felt the constant stinging that just wouldn't go away.

The same idiot that had just been saved by Kisara tried to attack Naruto again, but he should have left well enough alone when Naruto stopped his punch with the bottom of his shoe. The thug recoiled as if he'd just punched a row of thumbtacks and drew his hand back. He then tasted the bottom of that very same shoe when Naruto high-kicked him in the face.

The landed blow knocked the young man in a short arc through the air onto his upper back and Kisara attacked again with a kick aimed at his head instinctually he ducked it and a grin spread across her face as she pivoted her leg in midair and shifted to an axe kick, "Jeek Gi (Axe Kick)!"

She had him. Or did she? Instead of hitting Naruto she inexplicably wound up bringing her leg down on the shoulder of one of her own men that had been trying to come up from behind. Was that loser even that close to the fight to begin with? Whatever, if he was dumb enough to be that close he deserved his collarbone to be shattered. They all getting in her way and weren't bothering him much at all, 'Wait, where did he go?'

She was seriously regretting having that many people with her when Naruto took advantage of her most recent bit of fratricide to flip over her head and grab her by the shoulders with his arms crossed before kneeling upon landing and bending forward, unbalancing her and hurling her over his head with his momentum. Uncrossing his arms as he did so sent her spinning and rolling through the air into an oncoming slew of four new reinforcements, "Nichibotsu Kouka (Twilight Drop)!"

If those losers hadn't been there she would have smacked her head off of the floor like a cantaloupe, he threw her so hard. The flipping about wouldn't have helped her landing either.

With the cushion of people to prevent her from being potentially catastrophically flipped through the air, Kisara got right back up and shook off the disorientation, "Get off!" She groused, shoving people away that had been toppled over with her own body, "You're all useless! You can't even slow him down enough for me to take a shot at him? What good are you?"

Prompted by their tomboyish, yet still rather cute leader-in-arms, they got back up and charged Naruto again. Apparently it didn't matter if they took their time or not. If they went slow he'd blow right through them. If they went fast he'd make them look stupid, so they just threw caution to the wind and went for it.

"Fuck this shit." Naruto said, getting back into his stance, "I don't care anymore. Hide behind all of the idiots you want. I've got something for that." Reaching into his bag, he had one weapon on him that he knew he could use without getting in trouble.

Kisara covered her eyes as a plume of smoke burst up from where her allies had attacked their enemy from. What the hell?

Two smacks were heard from within the smoke, as well as a lot of jostling and fighting. It sounded like they'd managed to grab that bastard. Some ninja, getting stuck in his own stupid smokescreen.

A whistle alerted her to a place farther down the hall and she quickly ran forward before jumping over and through the smoke, landing on the other side to see Naruto standing on the lockers by an open window. Those windows opened?

Wait. That meant that her men were kicking their own asses. And as the smoke started to disperse through the window Naruto had opened she saw that this was exactly the case and she face-palmed hard enough to almost knock her hat off, "You damn idiots!"

"I know you're actually stronger than this." Naruto lifted his left arm to show a deep purple bruise that had come from blocking one kick he actually had to guard against instead of dodge, "A girl like you, you're really as tough as people say you are, but if you really want to break my neck like you said you did, next time leave the goon squad at home. You don't even need them. You just made me waste three minutes of my life beating up twenty guys."

Her eyes widened, as even though it was backhanded as all hell, it was still something of a complement. But even so, he was still walking away.

"Wait, you fucking coward!" Kisara cursed at Naruto before turning to her thugs as they had realized that they'd been fighting each other by this point, "Go get him and bring him back!" She ordered, and the others went after him, but Naruto wound up slipping out of the window to get outside, "Gah, I hate that son of a bitch! Go find him! And will someone get Takeda already?"

She already busted up his arm. The next time she was going to kick his skull in! And where the fuck did Shiratori go?

XxX

"Naruto what?" Kenichi shouted with a drop of the watering pail he'd been using to nourish the plants in the club room, "He found Valkyrie?" With an apron to keep dirt from getting on his white uniform shirt and gardening gloves on his hands he didn't exactly strike the most imposing figure.

"More like they ran into each other, but basically, yes!" Niijima informed him.

"Why didn't you do something?"

"Like what? I _am_ doing something! Getting a fighter that'll actually help!"

At that, Kenichi gulped and made to make his move, taking off his gardening gear and handing them over to a fellow club member with dark hair in twin braided pigtails and glasses that had come over to see what was wrong with Kenichi, "Izumi-san, I've got to go. A friend of mine is in trouble. You met him earlier; Uzumaki Naruto-san."

The girl blushed and nodded, knowing that he was a fighter. Izumi Yuuka had seen him defeat the brute Daimonji that had tried to ruin the greenhouse earlier that week, and knew that he wasn't the budding delinquent that rumors sprouting up would have him believe. He was a good-hearted person that was able to actually stand up for himself. While she didn't like fighting at all, that was an attractive trait to her.

Still, she didn't know much about that boy Naruto other than the fact he seemed to be on great terms with Kenichi. But they were like oil and water for the most part, "Are you certain? Isn't that dangerous?"

It shouldn't have mattered if it was dangerous or not. And though he could hear the concern in her voice, Kenichi just gave the girl a smile that turned her face red, "Well, that's what friends do. He'd do it for me." The enamored look on her face went lost when Kenichi thought of something and turned back to Niijima, "Wait. Haruo, why do you even care about this at all? You're pure evil."

"It's all for my empire of course!" Niijima stated firmly, "I can see value in being owed one by a man such as that, and by you as well, since I'm the one telling you that there's danger afoot!" Kenichi just gave him a deadpan stare and wondered if there was anything that guy did that solely for the benefit of another person, "Now go before it's too late."

"You're not coming?"

"You're the one training! I'm brains, not muscle!"

Touché.

Before he could leave though, the greenhouse found itself populated by one more that shouldn't have been there, "I knew that following away a scampering rat would lead me back to a nest." A nigh expressionless, tall, older person, extremely effeminate with long, wavy blonde hair walked in wearing fine clothing: a white button-up shirt, dark pants, and a blue coat that reached their ankles, "And here this one led me right to Shirahama Kenichi."

Was this person even in high school?

"Ah…" Niijima backed away and wound up hiding behind the girl from earlier who was not a fan of that at all, "The top bodyguard for Nanjou Kisara. That's Shiratori, 'The White Shadow'."

Damn it, he didn't know there'd been anyone there in the hallway that had seen him run away from the trouble that Naruto had found himself in, and he definitely didn't think there would be someone that would go after him instead of staying to deal with the clear and present threat that had been Uzumaki Naruto! How negligent to allow himself to be tailed.

But Kenichi couldn't beat this person!

Kenichi blinked, noticing just how girly-looking this guy was, and slowly slid himself into the basic posture for his Karate. So he'd have to fight another member of Ragnarok, one that was supposedly good if Niijima's cowering was anything to go by, "What do you all want with me?"

"If you're not a part of Ragnarok…" Shiratori said in a quiet and hard to hear voice, calmly moving into position for a battle, "…You're not allowed to stand. Kisara-sama explicitly said to crush you and everyone else around you that plan on going against us."

'We didn't plan on anything. It just happened.' Was it so wrong to desire to not get your ass kicked on a near-daily basis? Did that really call for an entire gang to come after your head? It didn't make sense, "Where's Naruto-san?"

"Probably being dragged off in a bloody mess by now after what Kisara-sama has gotten through doing to him." Yuuka let out a shocked gasp at the casual admission of such brutality, "She probably knocked all of his teeth out for speaking to her the way he has been the last two times they've had words. But I wouldn't worry about him." Without warning Shiratori attacked Kenichi head-on, "You should be more concerned with yourself!"

The first thing Kenichi saw was a leg rising at his head, 'A kick-based fighter!' What did he learn about dealing with certain types of fighters from his masters after hearing about Naruto beat up Koga the Kicker?

"Too slow!" Too late, as Kenichi was forced block his body once Shiratori's leg battered his side and sent him stumbling into a counter that held up a row of the plants in the room with a bang, "You move like a beginner! Without speed you'll never come close to scratching a Taekwondo fighter!"

Amid the scream from Yuuka and Niijima's nervous chattering, Kenichi winced and held his side at the blow he had received, 'I blocked and that still hurt like hell! This guy's kicks are strong!'

"If you can't avoid my kicks, Kisara-sama would eat you alive." Shiratori said, standing in a sideways Taekwondo stance, "Her moves are the perfect blend of speed, dexterity, and power. Above even mine."

"My friend fought a Taekwondo user a while ago and he made it sound easy." Kenichi said, getting back into his stance, "You only use your legs."

"Tch." Shiratori moved toward Kenichi again and began throwing more kicks from multiple angles, "Koga is just a punk that learned enough Taekwondo to get ahead of others like himself. He doesn't train, and he doesn't come close to measuring up to real martial artists."

"I don't see how you can think you're much better than him." Kenichi said, finding that all he could do was dodge. Those kicks were heavy! And he knew something about heavy kicks training with a fighting monster like Apachai trying to teach him, "All of Ragnarok is just a gang! What would make your reason for fighting any better than his if this is what you're doing with it?"

"Because I wish to be like Kisara-sama." Shiratori said, launching a short volley of kicks that Kenichi painstakingly blocked before leaning out of the way of a pair of punches that came back in response. Not there to play around, Shiratori leaned out of the way of a punch aimed at the face only to lift a leg and block a punch aimed at the body with the knee, "Incredible the way that she is. I won't allow anything to halt her progress to the top, and I joined Ragnarok to ensure that trash like you never believes themselves to be on her level."

Kenichi was stunned. Shiratori hadn't even tried to block him high and had seen his second more subtle attack all the way through. Karate wasn't working? He then felt his jaw move several inches to the right when Shiratori moved the blocking leg to kick him across the face and knock him to the floor, 'Gah, the Yamazaki technique didn't fool this guy for a second!'

"Kenichi!" Yuuka cried out as she ran to his side, "Stop! Why are you doing this?"

"Like I said." Shiratori said with a flip of the hair, "Weaklings shouldn't try to stand tall as if they're worthy. People like Kisara-sama are where they are for a reason. The Eight Fists of Ragnarok are where they are because they made themselves better than you. Don't try to pretend that you measure up."

Niijima at this point had taken to hiding in the supply closet, 'Oh man. Stupid Kenichi doesn't have a single advantage here! Speed, power, experience, and especially talent, Shiratori has it all over him!'

Kenichi slowly got up and moved Yuuka aside in case Shiratori would actually attack him with a noncombatant in the way. His face was clearly marked up from the kick that had landed, but he put his hands back up regardless.

Scoffing at him, Shiratori merely got up into the same stance as before, not sweating the determined look on Kenichi's face, "Some people don't learn until you force it into their heads. If you can't touch me how would you ever hope to face Kisara-sama?"

He probably wouldn't fight her anyway since it was obviously apparent that Kisara or 'Valkyrie' was a woman, but that wasn't the point to be had. The point was that he was being told that because he had always been weak he had no right trying to become strong. Why? So gangs like Ragnarok could do whatever they wanted and mess with people all they wanted, but the second someone else came around to stop that from happening_ then_ it became some big crime? Some inexcusable slight against them?

No. If you were weak and you worked as hard as you could to change that you deserved to keep your head up. And even if you weren't strong, what did that matter?

"I might not be born into martial arts like my friends. I might not have been training for as long as this Kisara person." Kenichi said, narrowing his eyes at Shiratori, "But that doesn't mean I have to just lay down and let people walk all over me when they feel like it. People like you…" Kenichi got back up in his preferred Karate stance, not deterred in the least by the beating.

Shiratori raised an eyebrow in interest and went on the guard at this new situation presented in the battle.

"People like you are the reason I wanted to learn how to fight in the first place! To keep you from mistreating others just because you can!" Kenichi barked, gritting his teeth and not willing to back down now, "Being strong isn't a privilege, it's a responsibility!"

Yuuka looked at him as if he were some kind of hero, even though he didn't really look it at the moment, bleeding from the cheek and black-eyed as he was.

But for all of that talk, Shiratori was still faster and had the rangier attack with the kicks. Which was then demonstrated when he approached again. He was able to dodge three kicks from Shiratori that kept him from getting closer, but even after getting through the edge of the range of the kicks Shiratori wasn't in range of anything he could attack with.

Giving Shiratori time to chamber another kick and snap one straight up to hit him right under the chin, sending Kenichi stumbling back again until he was able to catch a hand on top of one of the counters that held the plants of the club.

His hand skimmed across the top until he was able to stop himself and a couple of planters fell to the floor, breaking and sending potted dirt all over.

"Pathetic." Shiratori said, slowly walking Kenichi's way.

"Kenichi!" Looking to the closet where Niijima was hiding, he saw the strange alien making a boxed in gesture with his hands before using two figures to mimic Shiratori kicking. He kept repeating the two hand gestures until Kenichi's eyes widened and he understood.

That was perfect. He'd been fighting in the open area at the front of the room by the door, because that was where the fight started and that was where he had the most room to move around. While that was true, the same went for Shiratori, who needed it more and could use it better with the kicks that had been battering Kenichi around since the outset.

The club room consisted of rows of twelve-foot counters with around two feet of space between them. It was a rather tight fit, and that was perfect. Shiratori walked right in, throwing forward kicks while Kenichi backed up, keeping his guard up to prevent himself from taking too much damage.

Finally going for a trick attack, Shiratori tried to swing a leg out to gain momentum but ended up banging the leg against the side of the counter. Kenichi took a page from Naruto's book and got opportunistic as he switched his stance to that of basic Muay Thai. Swinging his elbow he actually managed to hit Shiratori who was not used to having to block with arms. And not being used to blocking with arms meant that Shiratori also wasn't used to having to do things to reset after blocking with the arms, thus the default was to push forward and try to shove the enemy back.

'Chance!' Kenichi utilized a very simple defensive tactic when an opponent came forward like that. He grabbed the back of the head and neck of Kisara's most trusted bodyguard and pulled down while jumping up and forward to smash Shiratori in the face with his knee, "Kao Loi (Flying Knee)!"

Lights out.

Niijima could only watch with an expression of shock. Kenichi had not only legitimately won a fight (with his tactically brilliant assistance of course), but he'd done it in one blow after looking like a human kickpad for the majority of it. Not the prettiest win, but you could either win ugly or not win at all.

Kenichi stood over Shiratori's body for a moment before realizing that it was all over, "Sorry." He said, sighing in relief, "But that's the one move that Apachai-sensei worked my legs to the bone making sure I knew." Basic or not, it still worked.

"Kenichi old buddy!" Niijima exclaimed as he darted out from the closet and started patting the young man on the back jubilantly, "Do you see what teamwork can do! You: the muscle. Me: The brains and ambition. Uzumaki: the operational know-how! Straight to the top! I didn't believe in you, but I just saw it for myself! We can knock Ragnarok from the top!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa Haruo!" Kenichi started moving away, holding up his hands defensively, "This Shiratori guy just said that Valkyrie is way stronger than him. I-I don't think taking on Ragnarok is the best idea by myself." At all. He just wanted to be able to handle them when they attacked him. He wasn't going to go looking for trouble.

"Right…" Niijima said, antennae sticking up out of his hair, tongue looking strangely forked as he was in thought, "…Not by yourself. Of course not, kekekekekeke…" When he realized Kenichi had moved away from him he then started speaking thoughtfully, "Shiratori was supposed to be one of the top guns of Valkyrie's gang though. She's a Taekwondo user like her leader so if nothing else you got some serious experience by beating her here."

"-He."

"What?"

Kenichi elaborated on what he said, "Shiratori was a 'he', right? A really girly looking 'he'…" His face turned a bit desperately when he saw the stone face that Niijima was giving him, "…Right? Haruo? Izumi-san?"

Holding up his PDA, Niijima showed Kenichi the file he had on Kisara's gang and those in it, with the page on Shiratori, "No. Shiratori is a girl. A flat-chested girl, but still a girl. Admittedly it's hard to tell under the coat and with those clothes though." He then noticed Kenichi start shaking, "What's wrong with you?"

Confused a bit too, Kenichi's fellow club member Yuuka went over to check quickly while Shiratori was still out and nodded in confirmation from behind her glasses, "Niijima-san is right Kenichi-kun. She's a girl."

"Noooo!"

"…Didn't I come here for a reason?" Niijima thought to himself as Kenichi started running around the greenhouse fretting about how he'd gone against his own moral ethics by knocking out a girl, "I swear I'm forgetting something."

XxX

(With Naruto – Outside of Koryou High School)

From the fourth floor where Naruto had been fighting Kisara, he lowered himself to the ground by a grappling rope he kept in his bag before pulling it down and packing it back up. As he walked around on the ground around the school he held his left forearm that was swollen with a dark purple or black bruise on the outside of his forearm that had almost spread around it entirely.

It hurt like hell.

'This is why I try not to block.' Naruto thought to himself, as every time his heart beat a pump his arm would throb right in that spot, 'Ugh, I think she cracked my forearm with those boots. I don't have any bandages in that damn bag?'

Of course when he knew he was going to school he had to allot a lot of space for books, and things that he could easily hide or get away with having in school in case anyone ever managed to check his bag. God knew he kept enough crap in there on a regular basis that he could spare some space for some first aid.

So his arm was probably injured, but now he at least knew something about one of their top foes firsthand, that she kicked like someone was swinging a sledgehammer. Stupid riffraff. Though he was able to grab plenty of them for well timed Kawarimi no Jutsu (Body Replacement Technique) attempts early on, they wound up being a pain in the ass when he actually started fighting Kisara herself.

He couldn't focus on too many people aside from her in battle when he was taking her on. She was too quick to give those kinds of openings to.

With a grunt, Naruto sat against the trunk of a tree outside and slumped to the ground, glaring at his left arm, "Well…" He said to himself before his phone went off. He'd given his number to another person now so more calls during the day had to be expected, "Hello?"

"_Naruto-kun! Are you alright? Where are you?"_ Miu. So her Gymnastics Club was over? Good, because he wanted to go home. Joining cross-country club or whatever the hell could wait because his arm was KILLING him, _"Haruo-san said that you were getting attacked by Ragnarok's Valkyrie."_

"I was. She had a lot of friends." Naruto said, wincing as he moved his wrist and fingers of his free hand, "Didn't go as well as I'd hoped it would because I didn't finish it. But… it didn't go that bad either."

"_Kenichi beat one of Valkyrie's lieutenants in his club room!"_

"No foolin'? That's awesome!" Naruto said, perking up before wincing at his recent injury, "Ah… can we talk later though? I kind of have to go home now."

"_Are you sure you're alright? Kenichi said he and Haruo-san can't find you."_

She was worried about him? Aww, he couldn't believe he used to think that she was an enemy whose only reason for existing in this world was to stop him from getting those weapons. She was the sweetest thing to be concerned with him. But then again she was worried about everyone. She was very empathetic.

_"There's word going around that there are a bunch of Ragnarok searching high and low for you. We're at the front gate and about to go to Ryouzanpaku. If you need we can wait for you and all go together."_

Naruto stood up, unable to help the grin that spread across his face. Having people that cared about his well-being was definitely better than going it alone. If he had to fight every single one of the Eight Fists of Ragnarok for them he would, "Nah, just get started on the way home. I'll be fine on my own." He said as he jumped on a tree branch and then on the wall that surrounded the school property, "I can move just fine on my own. I'm gonna go to my place and train, but "

He continued speaking as he jumped off of the wall to leave school, with no one really around to follow him or even do anything about him making such a movement, but a pair of easygoing eyes watched his moves as he did so before he lost track of him altogether.

Takeda and Ukita walked out from one of the side doors of the school, the latter with a comfortable smile on his face, "What an interesting guy. He's the one that stood against Kisara-sama's kicks and crushed Koga?" He said to himself as he walked over to Naruto's tree with his left hand shoved into his pocket while he tried to use his other hand to judge the distance that the ninja had jumped up to in order to reach the first branch, "Some jump. The guy should really join track and field. Maybe our school wouldn't suck at it if he did?"

Ukita just sneered at the thought of someone causing their gang that much trouble at school, "Stop complimenting the guy would you? First Koga gets destroyed, Shiratori gets beaten by that Shirahama kid. Even Kisara-sama couldn't take that ninja bastard's head. Just what's going on around here?"

"I was just making an observation. You and I can't make that jump." Takeda said with his infuriatingly calm smile, "I don't think you could make it to that branch if you reached for it with your hands."

"I'm Ukita the Thrower, not Ukita the Jumper you jackass!"

"Yeah, yeah." Takeda waved off his hotter-headed ally's response before grinning to himself as he began walking away to leave school as well, "I wonder what's faster though; a ninja's steps or a boxer's jab."

XxX

(That Evening – Naruto's House)

All the way home, Naruto had been nursing that arm of his as every move it made felt like something in it was clicking down where he'd taken Kisara's power kicks. The difference in a Taekwondo user's kick from his own was considerable. A small girl like that had so much strength in her legs. Even without the steel-toed boots, the impact from her blows would have been sick.

He was actually a bit excited. This was different from the grim kind of fear he had in his heart before Ryouzanpaku missions. He couldn't help but compare _that_ damnable feeling to the kind of feeling that ancient warriors would get before being asked to charge an enemy stronghold uphill in an open field. But this, it was a bit of a rush. He didn't want to become an adrenaline junkie or anything, but it was just something to point out.

Even with his left arm's ability downed, he could still use it. And each breath of fresh air he took on his way home made him feel hyperaware. The blood pounding in his ears made him feel like he could hear a cat jostle a trashcan from three blocks away. He felt like he could run a marathon and still have the juice to go a few rounds with Miu in a spar!

But he'd have to put that aside from now and fix his arm, and once he got through the front door of his home he locked the door behind him and immediately went looking around for his medical supplies. The one he had upstairs was basically empty of what he needed so he had to go downstairs to the cellar to get to the extras he'd stockpiled over the years. He just decided to get a snack to chew on and get busy.

While the two upstairs levels of Naruto's home looked extremely normal for a modern day middle class house, once you got past the trick-locked door and descended the stairs it stopped being so common. When in the hell did his dad find the time to set up a ninja dojo environment? It was larger in overall space than the entire first floor, front yard, and backyard with three different rooms in it. It was awesome and Naruto couldn't stop smiling out of pride when he'd first found it years ago.

It looked like a classical building interior from the walls and sliding doors, to the wooden floors out in the hallway around the main dojo room. But the floors themselves were a training tool, set to make even the steps of a cat sound out when they were walked on, in order to make moving silently and light-footedly a practice as absently thought of as blinking.

And why was there a mouse standing on two legs, looking at him with closed eyes… with a pink ribbon on its tail. It didn't even run away when Naruto walked toward it and stooped in front of it to stare at it before he broke off a little piece of his granola bar to hand down to the diminutive animal, "You're somebody's pet aren't you?" He said as the mouse spiritedly took the treat and nibbled at it after scampering up Naruto's shoulder.

It was obvious at that point, but it still had to be said. Why else would it be that comfortable with him, even if it knew he wouldn't hurt it? And why the hell else would it have a bow on its tail?

Nothing else did though, and Naruto wished he hadn't dropped his backpack with his weapons that he didn't keep down in the basement at the front door with his shoes. Digging through his pockets, Naruto looked for anything he might be able to use as a weapon, and eventually settled for taking off his belt to wrap around his injured left arm and fist.

Slowly moving through the halls to the back room of the basement where the particular weapons and equipment his parents had amassed before their untimely demises had been kept, Naruto slowly slid the door open to find a woman in a small pink kimono and purple stockings sitting on the floor holding one of his parents', and by proxy his, weapons.

In her hands she was carefully observing a three-foot steel chain with a small metal weight at both ends of it, just looking it over until her eyes panned up to lock with his. He looked ready to fight. Jittery, but very, very ready to fight.

He really believed that he could somehow win. That he could somehow get in some kind of lucky move, even though he'd never come anywhere near getting close to doing it before, even though she was armed, and even though all he had was a belt wrapped around his.

Well it wasn't like there was anywhere else to run, or if he even thought that he could escape either way, so that was probably a big factor as to why, "You're here, in my house." Naruto said, knowing that the cordiality with Ryouzanpaku was going to get him killed somehow, "…How did you even find me here?"

Shigure looked back down at the weapon in her hand and continued to appraise it, even as she spoke, "You attend Miu's and Kenichi's school. I followed you one day this week… to this place."

"Was it really that easy?"

"Not… really. You take confusing routes home. But I was on the rooftops."

Curses. Of course he didn't check the rooftops. Nobody moved like that other than very few people and his current enemies weren't amongst that particular group. He kept his eyes to the streets where Ragnarok members were more likely to be trolling around.

"Alright then." Naruto said, still standing in a stance ready to defend himself, "I always figured this would happen the second you figured out where I live." The locks on his door wouldn't have stopped him from breaking in so he figured someone else could have too, "So come on, let's get this over with. "

"I didn't come to fight." Shigure said, standing up from the floor and walking over to Naruto, "Do you know how to use this?" She asked him, holding up the chain and weight, "This weapon? You've never used it when you've been caught by us." He never used any of those things when he fought with them. He stuck to shuriken and other supplementary tools

"My manriki-gusari? I do weapons work every morning before school and I train with these every once in a while." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest, "I know how to use everything in this room just fine. I just can't carry any old thing I want with me. My bag is usually heavy enough without throwing more than I need in there."

Which was bullshit and the almost awkward way he said it showed as much. He armed himself to the teeth every single time he'd gone in there, it was just mostly with stuff that would help him hide and break into things instead of fighting though since he wouldn't have had a chance anyway.

The mouse on his shoulder jumped off and ran over onto Shigure's instead, shaking its head at him. Traitor. It could probably tell that he was full of crap though. Sure he knew how to use everything in there, but it didn't mean he was good at all of it.

Ryouzanpaku's resident master of all things weapon-related just stared at Naruto long enough to unnerve him, "I see." She then handed him the chain and walked back away from him a few steps, "Show me."

Like now?

Why?

Holding the chain in both hands at opposite ends, Naruto stood at the ready, keeping the chain outstretched in front of himself as if he were about to be attacked. He still stood wary, as if she drew that nodachi from her back it wouldn't matter what he had, she'd blow right through him.

He took a step forward to make a move to try and show her when Shigure spoke up, "Stop." She said before he could even try an attack.

"Wha-?" Naruto said, staring at her with squinted eyes, "I didn't even do anything yet."

Shigure could see that he had absolutely no faith in what he'd been holding and stopped him from making a move with a weapon that he clearly didn't want to use, "You need a longer chain to fight a weapon user with any kind of confidence. That length is good for hand-to-hand." She took the weapon from him and handed him another one about as long as his body, "This is more for you." He looked at it trying to adjust to the lengthened weapon and why she was even doing this, "Now try. You said… you could use everything in here. Use this."

Nodding to himself and to Shigure, Naruto held the chain at weighted end with his left hand while placing his right hand further up the chain leaving a foot and a half of slack at the end where he began spinning it over his head counterclockwise.

Dead silence filled the room with the exception of the swinging weapon whipping through the air, and Naruto wondered if he was doing something wrong again since she wasn't saying anything. Shigure simply stared at him impassively, and he couldn't tell what she was looking at or for.

"Attack."

He didn't know why he chose to listen, but Naruto suddenly threw the weighted end that he'd been spinning at her underhand, swiftly aiming at her body before she moved around it and went right for him. Naruto pulled the weight back as quickly as he could and spun around in a circle while it was retracting, turning it into a swinging weapon that Shigure jumped over before it could hit her.

Her feet pressed off of the ceiling and she launched down at Naruto, tackling him to the floor. The disoriented young ninja found the chain inexplicably wrapped around his neck and in Shigure's hand, threatening to choke him out.

She just stared down at him as he tried to wonder why that had happened so fast, and what the hell this had been about to begin with. God she was light, and he had a primo view of her mesh shirt-clad sizable bust underneath her kimono. And did steel have a scent?

As quickly as that, Shigure seemed to find what she'd been there to see and had removed herself from him and began walking out of the armory room, leaving Naruto on the floor with the manriki-gusari chain still around his neck, "The next time you come to Ryouzanpaku, you need to have a conversation with the masters. I'm here because of Sakaki and… Kensei. The Elder agreed. So I came here."

"Wait. Agreed to what?" Naruto said, getting the chain from the weapon off of his neck before getting up to follow her all the way out of his parents' basement training facility and out of his house entirely as she didn't stop again, "What just happened? And why do I need to have a conversation with anyone? I don't want to!"

She wouldn't hear it though, "And get your arm checked by Akisame… I know it's broken."

Seriously, what the hell just went on inside of his house? And how'd she know his arm was broken? He covered the bruise with his belt, didn't wince when using his weapons, and used the damn weapons the way he was supposed to! Those Ryouzanpaku masters were some scary people.

"I won't do what you say just because you tell me to out of the blue!" Naruto said once Shigure went out his front door, presumably to start on her way back to the dojo, "You're just the lady that kicks my ass every once in a while, you don't have any power over me!" She had barely made it out of Naruto's yard before those words got her to stop and slowly turn around.

When she did, both she and her mouse were looking at him with an intimidating stare that actually made him want to jump underneath his bed and hide like he was five years old again, "If you don't do those things, I'll come back… and make you."

Make him? Okay, fear for life or not, he wasn't going to take that. He resented it for several reasons that he had been about to voice aloud.

The first instinct he had was to open his mouth and bark out that she couldn't make him do a damn thing. But he thought wiser of it when he saw a slight flash of silver from the top of her nodachi sheath and quickly went back inside, shutting his door behind him as if that would stop her for even half a second if she'd really decided to come and get him.

"Right." Naruto said to himself as he swore he could still feel her glaring at his back through the wall and the door from outside, "You showed her Naruto. Scary sword lady or not."

Shikamaru always said that Ryouzanpaku was going to be the death of him one of these days. He was starting to think that maybe being positive and upbeat wouldn't make Shikamaru's prediction any less accurate for the near future.

* * *

**And that's chapter.**

**Now I've got to go deal with bum-ass bum of a bum brother. That little fucker needs to get his shit together. I thought I was bad, at least I'm worrying about trying to make things better. He just doesn't seem to care. He was the one that actually had potential.**

**Whatever. It's not my problem. I've got my own crap to deal with. If he wants to be a lazy shit until he gets kicked out that's his own dumbass fault. He's gotten every chance in the world to do something useful.**

**Enough bitching about that. Later guys.**

**Kenchi out.**


	5. Armed and Dangerous

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. If I break the world record for most hours spent dodging traffic can I change that?

**Chapter 5: Armed and Dangerous**

* * *

"I'm glad to see you again so soon Naruto-san." Akisame said as Naruto sat on an examination bed and allowed the Jujitsu master to check up on his arm, "I was afraid that with all of our… less than pleasant meetings in the past would have soured you on coming to my clinic."

"To be honest… it actually did." Naruto replied, trying not to wince as Akisame's grip moved over his forearm, "But I couldn't do my morning strength exercises and then I noticed that my arm swelled up like I stuck it in a beehive."

"And you went to school first today before coming?"

"Well I had to get Miu-chan and Kenichi to show me where this place was to begin with."

"I'm thinking that this isn't the sole reason." Akisame said as he started touching on the areas where he could feel the inconsistencies of Naruto's bone, "Come now. You can tell me. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all. Why did you choose to come here?"

'Because Shigure is a scary, scary lady.' Naruto just sighed and shook his head when he thought of the weapon-wielding beauty's not-so-veiled threat before muttering lowly, "_Vy, lyudi, takie strashnye _(You people are terrifying)." She'd basically threatened to kidnap or murder him if he didn't listen to her. Neither of those options were particularly appealing to him.

He didn't expect a tinge of interest to come from the philosophical intellectual, but indeed that was what he got, "Oh." Akisame sounded interested just at hearing Naruto speak, "_Vy govoritʹ na russkom _(You speak Russian)?"

Naruto didn't think Akisame would have heard him or understood what he had said. And that just made what he had told himself that much more truthful.

His face turned red looked over at the wall of the clinic room, rubbing the back of his head with his free arm, "Ah, my mom taught me when I was little, before I was sent away. Her family was originally Russian in the old times. Nobody knows where dad came from." He stuck the sad thoughts behind a grin that he plastered on his face, "Cool right? How many can you speak?"

Akisame could hear Naruto using a lot of past-tense in talking about his parents, but didn't press, "Oh, me? Sixty-three fluent languages and dialects the last time I checked." He said as if it was no great accomplishment

"What? Sixty-three? Have you even been to that many places?"

"Eh."

"What do you mean 'eh?'" Naruto asked, almost sitting up in the bed at getting riled up by such a nonchalant attitude, "What does 'eh' mean? Ow!"

Akisame finally let go of Naruto's arm and ignored the glare he got from the sixteen-year old ninja, "Right, well it's a clean break thankfully. So I can reset the bone and we can keep it in place until it heals."

Well that sounded all well and good, but in the meantime Naruto had questions, "Wait, you're not putting any screws or crap in my arm? No surgery or anything?" Great. And here he thought he'd hate going to this place as much as he hated going to hospitals.

"Well that depends. If you got surgery would you stop training and doing ninja-related things for eight weeks while it healed?"

"Hell no."

"Then you're not getting surgery." The well-studied martial artist/doctor said with finality, "No need to waste the hours needed for the actual operation. Our method is quicker to perform and will heal faster… but it will hurt more. Much more."

Once again, he didn't like the look in the eyes of a Ryouzanpaku master. What a surprise, "…How much more?" 'Can I Kawarimi with something before he grabs me?' Naruto thought to himself, his eyes passing between Kensei and Akisame. He already knew the answer to that question though, "No anesthetic? I don't see any needles or pills."

"No, because it won't take that long. Just ten minutes. Anything that would only dull pain for that long wouldn't be strong enough to make a difference anyway." Akisame said, "I'll just dull a few of your nerve endings and that should keep it from being completely agonizing." Naruto gave a relieved smile until he continued, "…Instead it will merely be excruciating."

Without a second thought, Naruto made a move to run, but Akisame had already grabbed him and twisted him into a pretzel, leaving only his left arm exposed and unharmed, waving in the air from how he was stuck, "What the hell?" Damn Jujitsu, "Wait, do I really need surgery or treatment or anything?"

"Now, now… nothing to worry about. I'll reset your bones, apply a mild numbing agent and a salve remedy to help speed up your healing, and then finish up with the rest of the treatment."

XxX

(Outside in the Waiting Room)

Ma Kensei and Koetsuji Akisame were the only two masters of Ryouzanpaku that had steady incomes via the clinics that the two ran with their respective medical expertise. Both men specialized in all sorts of treatments and illnesses with Akisame usually working in orthopedic assistance but also taking surgeries at times when the need arose.

Kensei's focus on the other hand centered around the various pressure points and ki-based needle treatments to help keep the body internally healthy, as well as many natural herbal remedies. It was a great acupunctural clinic.

They were very popular medical facilities. And thank goodness for that, because no one else was bringing in much cash otherwise.

Kenichi and Miu had taken Naruto there after school let out once he said he needed to go see Akisame for some medical purpose. His left arm had been heavily bandaged and he hadn't let anyone see it all day, actually choosing to wear the blazer of his school uniform for once to hide the injury to the best of his ability.

After bringing him they decided to wait it out for him in the waiting room out front while he was in getting fixed up.

"Why didn't he just come out and say he was hurt?" Miu asked with a cute pout on her face, "He's still hiding things from us. I still haven't seen his house and Shigure-san has, that's not fair! Is this just some kind of thing that men do, keep things from others?"

A sheepish smile came over Kenichi's face at the girl's displeasure of Naruto's weird spacy habits. She was just curious, and it was understandable. These were worrisome times with Ragnarok taking aim at them. To be honest it had bothered Kenichi a bit about all of the things that he never told him. Did he just not trust him, or what?

Even Miu knew more about Naruto. Hell, even Naruto more about Miu. His best friend knew more about the girl that he was enamored with to the point where he didn't seem to find anything about her curious at all, and in return she knew enough to trust his combat skill against people that would have destroyed him in combat.

They both didn't know or see it, but the two of them trusted each other almost unconditionally. Naruto really did trust and believe in her. It was her grandfather and _everybody_ else at Ryouzanpaku that he didn't trust.

"Uh, from time to time I guess." Kenichi eventually said.

"Do you hide things too?" She asked with a wry smile, "Come on. What kind of things does Kenichi try to hide from the world?"

"I'm not hiding any secrets Miu-san, honestly!" He was mostly being honest. He didn't really hide any secrets, and he could swear that the one he was keeping about how he felt about her really wasn't a well-kept secret, but neither Naruto nor Miu paid enough attention to think much about trying to pick up on it.

"It's okay if you are." Ryouzanpaku's fair maiden let out a small laugh at Kenichi's reaction, "Everyone has them. It's natural, just like it's natural for human beings to want to find out what they are."

Upon opening his mouth, an extremely loud yell almost peeled the color off of the walls and snapped Kenichi's jaw shut so he could gnash his teeth. Miu placed her hands up to her ears to drown it out, while the last two elderly people waiting to be seen just kept reading their literature without seeming to care.

"_AAAAAALL_ OF MY HATE!"

If Kenichi didn't already know from the first yell alone, the yelling along with the speech let him know that it was Naruto yelling in torment, "Should we go back there and see what's going on?"

"I don't think so." Miu said uneasily, "Koetsuji-san is a medical professional."

"WHAT THE HELL? THIS ISN'T A PROCEDURE! YOU JUST FORCED MY BONE BACK INTO PLACE!"

"Well that's what we're in the middle of doing." Akisame's calm voice said over the sound of Naruto's yelling, "We still need far more bandages to ensure that it will stay, along with the hardware. It's the best option without surgery, so please remain still Naruto-san."

"WHY!?"

"Sometimes the simplest options work best." Akisame said directly afterward as if it were any consolation, "Brute force can be just as much a problem-solver as anything else."

"He doesn't need our help." Miu tried to convince herself more than Kenichi at that point, her voice and smile shaking and straining the entire time, "He's in good hands." Somehow the easygoing two older people in the clinic waiting as well without giving off any sign of caring about the situation happening within earshot of them didn't make either her or Kenichi feel any more secure about it.

"MIU-CHAN! KENICHI! HELP! I'M NOT IN GOOD HANDS! THESE ARE THE HANDS OF THE DEVIL! AND OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT?"

"It's meant to keep you from reinjuring yourself until you're healed after we're done with you. It's for your own good."

XxX

(The Next Monday – Kouryo High School)

"So I can't join cross-country yet." Naruto said, leaning his head on his desk with one arm underneath it. His left arm was basically frozen at his side due to a very sturdy brace that was put on over the ultra-tight bandages done by Akisame the previous afternoon, "They won't let someone injured run for them until I'm better. Wimps."

Apparently their big procedure was to force Naruto's ulna back together with their bare hands and tie enough bandages around it to hold it in place with pure pressure… after slathering it in a special salve that would speed his healing time.

A brace went down his entire arm in order to keep him from jostling the bandages loose and hold them on as tight as possible. So basically his entire left arm had the mobility of an action figure until further notice. Super-sweet. Once again, he hid it to the best of his ability underneath long sleeves by wearing his entire school uniform, but eventually someone would figure out why he could only move his arm at the shoulder

"It could be worse." Kenichi tried to point out for his best friend's benefit.

"How?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow, "How could this possibly be worse? I can't train, I can't eat, I can't sleep." Naruto then stopped to think about it, "Heh, well I can eat. And then sometimes when I eat I get sleepy…"

"I don't think I should tell you since when I do it'll probably wind up happening."

"Good point. Your masters are still jerks though. I didn't know Akisame was that… brutal." He could still feel his arm click back into place from pure elbow grease. You'd think a pair of medical experts would have come up with something more complicated than that, "I thought he'd be the nice one."

Kenichi chuckled nervously before rubbing his weary shoulder from the previous evening's weekend's work at Ryouzanpaku. After how Shiratori tore him apart and he won off of a technicality he needed to improve before Ragnarok really sent their big guns in, "The training with Akisame-sensei is rough. I've got to practice hundreds of throws on stone statues twice my size. And they're only going to keep getting bigger!"

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"It's not, but then there's the strength and speed exercises he makes me do! And then the stretching machine! I've seen hell Naruto-san!" The machines were definitely the worst. It was like they were just meant to pound his arms and legs into jelly. The last one actually dislocated something, but compared to Naruto's arm that needed to mend that was an easier fix.

Akisame had already admitted to coming up with half of that stuff randomly and building it in his spare time, and that he was using Kenichi as a guinea pig to see if his ideas for speeding up his physical development would work.

"You can't tell me it's not way better than getting beaten up though." Naruto said before trying to relax and looking over across the room as Miu walked over to them before class began. Two other boys followed a bit of a distance behind her, glaring at the two of them like lost puppies because she being around them and didn't pay anyone else any mind. Maybe if someone else tried talking to her face-to-face… "Miu-chan."

"Good morning Naruto-kun, Kenichi." She said brightly with a smile as she came over to see them for a few minutes prior to school, "How is your arm doing?" She said in a bit of a whisper, "I know how much you like your secrecy."

Naruto gave her a look in return of slight bewilderment. Okay, so he might have gone overboard with all of the secrets. But he was getting better now! He finally gave her his actual phone number, and if she wanted to find his house she could probably just ask him now after it wasn't an advantage that he held any longer, "It's fine, I guess. You don't really have to whisper."

"So when are you coming back to the dojo?" Miu asked Naruto with a huge smile. He hadn't been there since the day that they sparred. It was nice to train with someone that she didn't need to go as easy on. Even though Kenichi was steadily improving in skill and confidence in his abilities, he still wasn't good enough to take enough of her to make it intriguing, "You're hurt so you can't go home to train yourself right? Why not visit?"

Upon the dojo being brought up, Naruto looked away a bit sheepishly, "Ah… I don't know. I mean everyone there is always so busy training Kenichi until nighttime. And you train too. What exactly am I gonna do but sit around?"

Also he remembered what Shigure had said about having to come to Ryouzanpaku to talk with the other masters, and he didn't want to do that. Even if she had been pretty straightforward with what she wanted him to do, why did he have to listen to her? What the hell could they possibly have to say to him that would be the least bit positive? They trained Kenichi well, and Miu was a sweetie so they weren't all bad people, but no, four years of asskickings made a man wary of certain surroundings.

"Well what were you going to do anyway?"

"…Stuff."

"Nothing dangerous I hope." Miu reached over and poked at Naruto's mostly prone arm. She could feel the shell of the soft wrappings underneath, and even the brace itself, "Kisara broke your forearm with one of her kicks. You can't go getting into trouble like this while you're hurt."

So it was more dangerous to try and outmaneuver street punks than to sit down in a room surrounded by masters that only knew him as the ninja-kid that constantly tried to rip them off?

But even so, he wasn't going to Ryouzanpaku, even if it made Miu sad. So he needed to sidetrack her, "Hey, why don't you guys come and see my house today?" Miu's eyes lit up like stars and even Kenichi seemed intrigued, "But I've got nowhere to hang out today during club time since Cross-Country Club won't let me join while I'm hurt."

"Oh, well if you don't have anywhere to go you can stay and watch Gymnastics Club until it's time to go home."

Both Naruto and Kenichi covered their noses with trained swiftness before even a drop of blood spilled, unlike the two eavesdropping regular students behind Miu that found themselves missing a portion of theirs down their faces. Did that girl seriously not know what she was capable of doing to men? For someone so smart academically and based in martial arts she missed a lot of stuff.

"Sounds like a plan." Naruto said, still holding his nose to keep precious life-fluid from spilling forth, "I'll follow you, after the last bell." Miu looked at the two of them strangely, wondering why her friends were holding their noses, but before she could ask, the bell rang and she had to get to her seat.

Kenichi let out a sigh of relief, as he didn't need to be caught with his mind in the gutter. Neither of them had ever been in there during meetings, but from what Miu wore to go to practice they could only imagine, "Uh, you're not going to spend the whole time just ogling Miu-san are you Naruto-san?" The thought of that sort of ticked him off, but what could he do about it?

Naruto sniffed heavily to draw his blood back up and shook his head to rid himself of the remaining aftereffects, "Tch, no." For some reason, Kenichi sighed in relief at hearing that, "I mean I'm definitely gonna, but there's way more pretty girls in that club than just Miu-chan."

"You're horrible! Don't you have any shame?" Kenichi whispered to Naruto loudly under his breath as the teacher came in to start the day. Seriously, Naruto was going to spend an hour and a half looking at all of Miu's sexy, stylishly contorting her body with him as an audience.

Oh man. Why couldn't it be him with broken arms so he couldn't water plants or something and he could sit on the sidelines in that club? Wow, that was a very bad way to get something like that to happen for him. And he was pretty sure it could be easily arranged if he slacked off in his training.

"You're jealous!" Naruto returned in just as hissing a whisper. All those girls, and he was supposed to turn that offer down? Not a snowball's chance in hell! This was like how one of the scenes out of that Icha-Icha book started… not that he'd ever bought one of those books. Because he hadn't. And if anyone ever accused him of owning any he'd deny it up and down!

"They're going to think you're a creep!"

"I was invited! And if I let them know I'm hurt I'll probably get some pity!"

XxX

(Apartment Hideout)

It had not been a good stretch of time for Nanjou Kisara, despite being the Eigth Fist of Ragnarok.

First Koga gets beaten by that jackass Uzumaki without laying a hand on him, then Shiratori goes down to the Shirahama kid of all people. Shiratori was supposed to be one of her lieutenants, a skilled Taekwondo practitioner, and some newbie fighter ups and defeats her. The only reason she hadn't been a member of the Technique Trio was because she preferred to stay around Kisara as a bodyguard and personal attendant. How hard did he have to train to manage that in only two months?

On top of that they were routinely getting members beaten up whenever some of them found and tried to fight them.

And then she actually fought with one of them herself, the apparent ninja of the pair, and even with reinforcements upon reinforcements she only hit him somewhat cleanly one time. What was going on? They were Ragnarok for fuck's sake! They weren't supposed to be having trouble at a time like this!

"Takeda…" Kisara said, taking a short rest in between switching out partners for a sparring session. Even with pads and protective equipment she beat the poor fool unconscious in seconds and now they were deciding who was going to have to go next before Kisara yelled for one of them in particular, because that would only make it worse, "Tell me you've got something good for me for once."

The other nameless underlings were sorely hoping that the cool-tempered boxer really had something she'd want to hear. For their sake. She'd already gone through eight of them.

"I will soon." He said with an easy grin, "But you seem agitated Kisara-sama." He pointed out, only getting a dry look from her in return that belied just how un-amused she was. Even Shiratori, who was wearing a bandage on her nose, moved away just in case, "…More agitated than usual."

"Gee thanks." Kisara said sarcastically, "This is serious! This needs to be handled by the time Odin calls for the rest of the Eight Fists to meet. That bastard Loki _always_ knows whenever something is happening around us and if we lose face I'll have to do something drastic to keep my spot as a Fist."

"Just be patient. You've still got me and Ukita to hunt them down." Takeda said, turning around to leave with a careless wave over his shoulder, "By the way… you said you kicked Uzumaki right?"

"In the face, but he shook it off." The redhead recalled the exact strike she actually landed in their battle. It didn't even slow him down, "That was the only time I could hit him clean." Which was why she was currently trying to spar with human targets to practice. They all sucked though. None of them could mimic just how difficult it was to keep him right in front of her at a good distance.

"The only time you hit him cleanly, or the only time you hit him period?" Takeda asked for better clarification.

"I threw three power kicks and he blocked them with his left arm." Kisara explained, glaring at Takeda for bringing it back up, "What's your point?"

His easygoing smile never fell from his face as he walked away out of the room, "Have you ever kicked anyone that hard with nothing bad ever happening to them?"

Her eyes widened after she thought about it for a moment and a smirk spread across her face as she caught on to what he was trying to get across. Oh yes. Today was going to be a good day. They already knew where to find Shirahama even if Shiratori had lost upon discovering as much, "…If you can find them by the end of school-."

"Already heading back now."

XxX

(That Afternoon – With Shikamaru)

Damn that Naruto.

How did that bastard manage to convince him to go looking for trouble? All he wanted was to live his life, go to school, go home, sleep, repeat until graduation and then do the same in college, repeat, and do the same until graduating where he could get some cushy desk job where he didn't have to put forth any effort for the rest of his life.

Granted, he still wasn't putting forth any effort at all, but trying to look like some bored, useless peon was uncomfortable to do outside of his own home. Even if it was easy.

But he'd told him about the Valkyries, and Shikamaru already knew about them, 'A group of women fighters with the same codename as one of the Eight Fists?' While that night might not have been the best time for Naruto to look into it, kudos to him for deciding to bring it to him.

For multiple reasons.

One, it showed he was attentive enough to not miss something like that. Two, because it was something easy that Shikamaru didn't have to trouble himself much with doing and could use to dig deeper as long as he could go incognito. Luckily the Valkyries were based around the area where he lived, and they weren't hard to find. All you had to do was look for the similarly dressed girls carrying weapons. He didn't have to do much asking around to find the café that they frequented.

So basically he was just getting lunch and just hanging out. If he happened to get a good look at the women, and just so happened to leave at the same time that they did, going in the same direction that they were going to on his way home that would just be coincidence.

"Mackerel and kelp please." Shikamaru said to the waitress that took his order with a smile and left him to his own devices, idly taking up his own time by screwing around with some wires between his fingers, making patterns and figures out of the weaves, "Thanks."

Yeah, it was really easy to look inconspicuous. He was just some scrawny high-school kid with a dullard look on his face. From where he was he could hear the conversation from the corner booth of the nine older girls he'd set out to find as clear as day.

"I hear that Kisara's having troubles cleaning up her part of town." One of the girls with curly brown hair in side pigtails said as she calmly sipped at her drink, "Whose call was it to make her one of the Eight Fists? She's not on Freya-sama's level, so why?"

"Kisara was strong enough to distinguish herself from the Valkyries and get noticed by Odin-sama." Freya said, calmly sitting at the middle of all of her underlings, "He has an ability to see skill and strength, otherwise Ragnarok wouldn't exist at all. She's already talked to me about some of these troubles so that if she hadn't solved them by the next meeting of the Eight Fists at least one of us would know in advance and not be caught by surprise."

A girl with short, curly blonde hair looked embarrassed and red-faced at the bringing up of the 'problem', "I can't believe I didn't notice the guy move me into his way. But real ninjas don't exist, do they?"

Shikamaru did his best not to smirk and in the end he wound up managing to do so with a very morbid thought, 'Well, technically we're not. We're Nuke-nin, but that's close enough for people that don't understand the system.'

"It doesn't matter." Freya said with a shake of her head, "I've seen his face. And since we know he's based out of the same neighborhood as Kisara's high school we can find him ourselves with Odin-sama's consent in case this becomes an actual problem."

Oh hell. They had a point. Unless Naruto ditched school regularly or something all it would take would be diligence to find him. He wasn't the most unassuming-looking guy in the world to begin with, so even if he was a first-year someone would be able to pick him out of a lineup like it was nothing.

Great, so now the next time Naruto showed his face around to talk to him he'd have something to tell him worth a damn.

"Here you go cutie." The waitress said with a wink, setting down Shikamaru's food before noticing the strings had been playing with between his fingers, "Oh wow. I heard that people good at that can make all kinds of things, patterns and figures, in there."

"Huh, this?" Shikamaru said, stopping what he was doing to free his fingers and prepare to eat, "No, I just fool around with these to help me think. I'm not really good at anything."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You look like a pretty reliable guy."

"No, I'm nothing special." Shikamaru said, beginning to eat while feeling the eyes of someone at his back. It had to be the Freya girl. But why? How? He hadn't done anything. He was just talking to the waitress, and the only reason he was doing that to begin with was so he could avoid attention, "Just some first-year in high school. I haven't found what I'm good at yet."

Get your eyes off of his back woman. He hadn't done anything yet!

Shikamaru continued to make small talk with the waitress until she left to get back to work, and he finished his food. Thankfully he felt Freya's eyes leave him quickly during his talk and she got up to leave before him. He really didn't want to push his luck and try to follow her out to wherever she and the Valkyries were going. He'd have to walk off with what he had.

As she left, Freya actually sized up Shikamaru from the front and caught his eyes. Like Naruto's had been when she'd seen him they weren't afraid or even wary of the presence of the Valkyries. Those weren't just the eyes of someone that knew how to handle themselves in a fight, they were the eyes of someone that had dealt with worse before. But there was something there that Naruto's did not have.

While Naruto's eyes were brimming with confidence and hope, Shikamaru's just looked entirely disenfranchised, 'Those are the eyes of someone that's given up.' And those wires he had been playing with. That wasn't string. That was wire. Probably heavy-duty wire. What was going on in this town?

XxX

(Kouryo High School – Gymnastics Club)

Naruto wanted to pretend that he wasn't totally out of place, and he so sorely wished that he could enjoy just how awesome it was to sit there and watch the Gymnastics Club in action. But it was so difficult to sit there and try to pretend that it wasn't completely sketchy for him to be the only guy anywhere near that room, let alone sitting in it.

He couldn't even enjoy all of the beautiful girls showing off the physical limitations of their lovely forms.

"This seemed like a better idea in my head." Naruto said to Miu as she took a seat over by him after one of her routines. And really, it had been. Apparently when they had all hit high school, getting injured stopped being a reason for getting attention from pretty girls that otherwise wouldn't have given him the time of day, "I didn't think this through as much as I thought I did."

Eyes from most of the girls had been on him from the second he walked in. And none of them were really of the pitying type, which he would have been fine with. They were asking more along the lines of what the hell was a boy doing in there? But no one said anything out loud, because Miu had been the one to bring him, and she was the star performer. Even though she wasn't cocky about it, she could probably do anything she wanted and get away with it.

Said girl was wiping off her face with a towel before quickly putting her glasses back on, "What's wrong? Are you bored here too?"

"Well I'd rather actually be doing something, but there's not a lot I can do with my arm stuck like this." Naruto said, as his arm couldn't move from the bicep down, "No though. You were really good though. I guess using moves like that outside of fights is way easier."

In other places of the room while the dual blonds spoke to each other, some of the other gymnasts were talking about the odd person speaking with their best athlete, "How does Miu-san know a guy like that?"

"Don't you know who that is? He's the kid that's supposed to be a ninja. The guy taking on Ragnarok with Shirahama Kenichi. But he doesn't look so tough and scary like Niijima-san keeps telling everyone."

"He looks kind of weird but definitely not scary, or like a ninja. Aren't they supposed to be all quiet and antisocial?"

"He's been sitting there perving on our routines for most of the hour."

And Naruto could hear everything they were saying, "I… think I should go before all bets are off and I get a bad rep from this. Niijima could probably twist this up all different kinds of ways if he really wanted to." He said with a rather empty grin.

Miu had equally sharp hearing and knew by now that Naruto's presence was turning out to be more disruptive than anything else. It wasn't his fault. A lot of the girls were self-conscious of doing their rhythm gymnastics thing at practice when they were amongst each other, let alone in front of a pseudo-audience in him.

"Okay." Adjusting her non-corrective lenses on her face, Miu couldn't help but frown when Naruto got up off of his seat on the bench and started to leave, "Are you sure you don't want to stay here for the rest of practice?"

"Yeah, I'll just wait outside. Don't worry. I can hang out for thirty more minutes." What the hell could possibly happen in thirty minutes time?

XxX

(Elsewhere in School – Gardening Club)

Outside of the greenhouse that served as the club room for Kenichi's in-school interests, he set down a pot he'd been using to water plants inside and looked in the general direction that he knew the Gymnast Club to be in.

With a sigh he scratched at his head. It was only a few more minutes before he could set out to meet up with Miu and Naruto. In that amount of time there wasn't really anything too perverted that Naruto could get up to. But a ninja was supposed to be sneaky. If a girl got too close, Naruto could cop a feel or something.

No, he wasn't that kind of guy. He was look but don't touch.

Anyway, which arm of his was dominant anyway?

"You aren't hard to find at all anymore if you're always gonna be diligently attending your clubs."

Kenichi jumped up to his feet alarmedly and looked around to see a large teen in sunglasses with a scar on his chin and seemingly frosted hair walking his way, "Ah… don't tell me." He said with a bit of trepidation to have to fight again so soon, 'Maybe I should come to Gardening Club less until this all blows over?' He seemed to fight around there pretty consistently, "Ragnarok?"

"You can call me Ukita the Thrower. You must be some special kind of stupid to stay in the same place where you fought Shiratori." He then noticed Kenichi get gloomy without warning at all, "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Ah, can you tell Shiratori I'm sorry about that?" Kenichi asked off-handedly, scratching at his band-aid, "I usually don't… well, could you just say I'm sorry for me?"

Ukita gave him a weird look as he ruffled his own collar, "Tch, why would I apologize to him for you bastard?"

"Shiratori's not…" Kenichi started to say before deciding to move on. If he wasn't the only one that had mistaken Shiratori for a boy it must have been rather common to do so, "Nevermind…"

Ukita's smirk grew as he started confidently striding Kenichi's way, "I'm supposed to grab you to see Kisara-sama. She's interested in getting you under control, especially after she found out that you beat Shiratori. But let's see if you're worth the attention first!" He lunged at Kenichi to grab him but got nothing but air, "Huh?"

Turning around he saw Kenichi slowly backing away with his hands up, "Hey, why do we have to fight? I mean-."

Making him look stupid by moving out of the way faster than he'd anticipated wasn't fine with him, "You're done kid!"

The older, larger student charged him with a violent yell, and by now Kenichi was conditioned to react whenever people shouted at him because that usually meant that he'd have to defend himself or pay dearly for failing to do so.

And he wound up putting down Ukita the same way he beat Shiratori, with a quick knee to the face.

Someone clearly didn't get briefed on what his enemy could or would do.

XxX

Underneath a tree sitting outside of the Gymnast Club, Naruto had his uniform top off and was busy glaring at his brace before looking around suspiciously. Upon seeing no one around he started angrily biting at the black metal as if that would relieve the pressure on his arm and the annoyance at it that he felt. After half a minute of wasting time with that he finally gave up and leaned his head against the trunk.

A young man with long white hair in a ponytail, and a casual smile on his face walked over from the first floor breezeway upon spotting Naruto. Said ninja looked up and locked eyes before figuring out that people didn't give him the time of day unless they wanted something from him, and that something these days was usually a fight, "I heard you were around here."

Damn, can't students ever not run their mouths about someone being somewhere even after school?

Takeda casually strolled Naruto's way with his hands in his pockets as he got up off of the ground, "Uzumaki Naruto. For a marked man and a ninja you don't try that hard to hide do you? Tons of people saw you come here."

"Oh enough with the stereotypes already!" Naruto said, throwing his good arm up into the air belligerently, "Okay, let's get this straight. Ninjas don't hang out in the shadows all day and only come out at night dressed in all black. We're just like everybody else, but sometimes we do awesome stuff that we don't like being seen doing. So why would I hide?"

"Because Ragnarok wants your head. Is that not a good enough reason?"

"Not really." Naruto said, squinting his eyes, "Trying to go unseen when you don't have to sucks."

"I guess you really aren't that smart after all." Takeda said, lifting one fist, "So yeah, my name is Takeda. I'm here to beat your ass to a pulp, drag you to Kisara-sama, blah, blah, blah. I'm pretty sure you know the drill by now. So come on."

If there was just one guy after Ragnarok knew what he'd done when surrounded by more people and their boss as well they had to be strong enough to not require backup to take on skilled opponents. And he was handicapped. That was just great. He shot a glare at his useless left and apparently Takeda picked up on his ire at his injury.

"You blocked a series of heavy kicks from the Eighth Fist." Takeda said, shrugging with one arm while the other remained in his pocket, "If your arm isn't broken you had to have a steel plate embedded in there already. But tell me something. She offered you the chance to join Ragnarok. Why didn't you do it?"

Naruto sighed and looked at his arm one last time. From around his left hand up past his bicep underneath his shirt it was wrapped in an innovated soft cast and held on tight by a brace holding his arm in place at the elbow and wrist with a long black length of metal on the inside and outside of his elbow so that his arm movements wouldn't risk loosening any bandages or jostling his bone out of place before it knit itself back together.

The Shikamaru-reminder portion of his brain told him that fighting anyone halfway decent with that thing was just asking for trouble, but Naruto just ignored it to answer Takeda's question, "Because I don't want to. I'd rather help my friends deal with you instead."

"And what if I offered you another spot right now? We don't even have to fight."

"Still no. I may fight like a jerk, but if there's one thing a ninja has, it's loyalty."

Takeda just laughed before his expression became bitter, "You're an idiot." He held up one taped fist in Naruto's direction, "Loyalty? I know you think that sounded really cool and everything, but you should really just shut up. Loyalty is usually a one-way street, and in the end it never does anything for you."

"What are you talking about man?" Naruto said with a grit to his teeth. Loyalty was extremely important to what made him who he was. If anyone was willing to put up with all that he was, they had an ally for life. It was as simple as that, "I always have reasons for who I'm loyal to, and anyway how are you going to sit there and tell me about it?"

He was taking orders wasn't he? That had to require some kind of loyalty or something.

"You want to know what 'loyalty' is doing for you right now?" Takeda taunted as he started bouncing around on his toes to get loose for the fight, "You're fighting a battle that Shirahama started the day he took Daimonji down. If you'd have just let Tsukuba get him it would have ended there. But no, you had to step in, out of loyalty, and this is what you're getting now. I'm going to knock you out, and then break that wounded pipe-cleaner you call an arm in half."

"You done?" Naruto said, switching up his usual stance to stand with his right hand facing Takeda, held up in the half-ram seal. His left arm was out of the way so he could protect it as best he could, "Because if you are I've got to kick your ass before my friend comes out."

"Heh." Takeda turned towards a group of the gymnasts standing around almost petrified at the two Ragnarok executives threatening violence in their club room, "Waiting on a friend you say? I'll make it quick. I only need one arm to beat you."

Yes, he was injured, but that boast ticked Naruto off considerably. His opponent didn't need to take a handicap for a more even fight just because he himself was handicapped.

"We'll see about that!" Naruto started dancing around to get his legs loose and get an angle on Takeda before abruptly rushing forward speedily, 'Gotta strike first!' Takeda was no slouch on his feet though, and Naruto saw him begin shuffling to the opposite side that he'd been drifting toward, 'Good footwork, but mine are still-.'

And then he felt a punch land right around his right hand that he'd only meant to be using as a way to protect himself in case of being attacked, right in his face.

Stumbling back, Naruto felt like he'd been hit more than once, not just right underneath the eye, but in the body as well. He fought himself from holding his ribs or from coughing, instead glaring and wincing through one eye, 'I barely saw those coming. What kind of a punch was that?'

"You know how they say speed kills?" Takeda said, still moving around on the mat with his right hand up, "Well you just have speed. I've got the power to go with mine. Now if I were using my left hand… oh." He could only laugh at the thought, "Don't you get it? Footwork by itself won't do anything for you here. You need both arms to protect yourself with a boxer using just one."

Eyes panning around, Naruto saw that they were in the middle of an empty space. It was just a grassy lot in between the buildings with one tree. That was it.

The day he wound up being found while hurt would be the one day where he didn't have the option of a three-dimensional battle style.

His opponent could punch faster than his legs could move. That seemed ludicrous.

Naruto shook his head off and moved back in to Takeda's right side, "You need both arms to protect yourself from _me_!" His first offensive move let him lash out with a mid-level kick that kept him out of Takeda's fist range. It struck off of Takeda's left arm and Naruto smirked at having to have injured that arm at the elbow.

That was what he got for keeping it in his pocket. That elbow was a bullseye.

Then he took a skull-shaking hook to the face with Takeda's right that knocked him away again, wobbling on his feet from the impact of the punch that almost dimmed his lights. Only supreme balance kept him on his feet, 'What? I kicked him hard enough to tear that arm apart!' He didn't block it, and the contact was solid, 'He should be feeling all of that right now!'

Naruto wasn't a kicking specialist or anything, but he didn't need to be for what he just threw and how it just landed. A kick like that should have shattered that elbow. That fight should have been over!'

But Takeda just walked through it. Naruto turned every bit of his hips into it, just for that reason. Just to hit that arm as hard as he could, and nothing seemed to happen. Takeda seemed to turn just as much into his counterpunch that almost knocked him out.

"You've got to get a bit more creative than that." Takeda said, not even registering that Naruto's kick had battered his unprotected arm. The kick smarted his entire torso, but the arm took most of the damage and cushioned the blow, "I told you, a boxer's punch is like nothing you're ever going to face."

XxX

"Hey." Ukita's complete vision of darkness came to see color again only to find a relieved looking Kenichi standing over him, "Oh man, thank goodness you're alright." What the hell? Why was the guy trying to see if he was okay, "Sorry about that. I've been using that move a lot lately, especially yesterday, and when you lunged I just… went for it."

Apologizing to the guy that just tried to kick your ass. Okay, that was a new one, "What's wrong with you kid?"

"Huh?" Kenichi replied confusedly as Ukita sat up and felt around on his face for the damage done to him, "I don't get it? What do you mean? I didn't even want to fight you like that without a reason, so why would I just leave you lying here?"

"I attacked you. That's enough of a reason."

"I guess. But something about that just seems… wrong."

Ukita couldn't even find it in himself to chuckle. Someone tough enough to stop him and Shiratori was that much of an impeccably nice person, "I got my ass kicked by a pacifist?" He said with a bark of laughter, "What a world."

XxX

'Left arm.' Naruto thought to himself as he noticed Takeda's arm stuck inside of his pocket, 'Okay… alright. Even if he's stupid enough to keep his left hand in his pocket, in his stance and with what he knows about footwork he can still use his right hand to protect the front two corners of his four corners of vulnerability.'

That much was clear from how he'd nailed Naruto four times with violent right hand punches to Naruto's one kick that was seemingly ineffective in damaging his left side.

The four corners of vulnerability were the main points of Naruto's attempts to outmaneuver his enemies. Front left, front right, rear left, rear right. Getting close in these areas opened up avenues for attack and pigeonholed the enemy into only being able to use so many of their own attacks since they were not squared-up. The first two were the easiest to get to but the easiest for the enemy to defend themselves from.

The last two were the hardest to get to, but when he did, there was almost nothing the majority of fighters could do to stop him. They were also his path to victory, because with only one arm available to him as a viable tool he could only attack from one of the front sides; Takeda's right.

He hadn't tried taking a rear position against a real opponent for the last two in years, because he'd only fought with Miu. But sparring with Kenichi the other day told him that she was just freakily conditioned to defend herself from behind. Getting that position was as good as a checkmate on anyone else.

'Got to test how good his reactions are.' If he was going to try and go for that move he was going to have to see just what Takeda could do to keep him in front of him.

'The idiot is attacking again head-on again?' Even if he did what he did the first time and suddenly picked a direction to try and get an angle from at the last second, Takeda's agility wasn't so terrible that he'd be outmaneuvered by him attacking from anywhere his arm could reach, "You don't realize how scary my hands can be?"

"I'm not afraid of anything!" Naruto shouted belligerently, lunging at Takeda's left corner before seeing he was ready for it, 'Okay, as long as I keep going that way he'll jab all day long. He's aware enough to keep up as long as I go that way and his jab is fast enough to keep me back to punish me, but he's not fast enough to chase me.'

Staying with his movement, Naruto posted his right arm on the ground and swung his left leg up at Takeda's head only for him to show off his head movement next where he dodged the upward motion of the leg, "Whoa, nice tr-!"

He was silenced when Naruto's right leg that Takeda thought would have remained on the ground for balance shot out to kick him in his front leg's knee. Using the push from landing the kick, Naruto pushed up off of his left arm in the rugged boxer's direction.

A sharply wincing Takeda saw him bounce back upright and shot his right hand out only to hit nothing when he saw him coming his way. Naruto was farther back than he'd perceived, 'What? He was coming right at me! I saw his legs! What kind of a feint was that?'

The palm of Naruto's right hand turned and brushed the back of Takeda's right fist, moving it slightly to the side as he span backside around Takeda's right to try and get to his back. In a panic, Takeda tried to turn to his right instead of his left, which would have been faster, but his arm was in his pocket.

You can't turn in a direction faster than another person that was already moving that way, especially when they had a headstart. When he finished turning around in Naruto's direction he wound up running into the front 'spine' of the hard black metal brace that held Naruto's arm in a slightly bent angle.

Naruto had lifted his injured arm in the midst of his own spin to nail Takeda in the midst of his rotation that knocked him flat on his back with one leg sticking up in the air, "Tekiatsu Satsugai (Cyclone Kill)!" His hair flew out of its ponytail he was hit so hard.

Cyclone Kill: Rotate around an opponent's attack and out of sight until one of the rear corners of vulnerability are taken or your own movement is rendered null. Stay tight and close enough while out of their field of vision to instantly attack a vital area on the front side of their body once they turn and expose themselves to you, before they can even see you and properly protect themselves and using the movement of the spin to add speed and power to the eventual finishing blow.

It was supposed to be an elbow, or with a weapon of some sort. Naruto due to the lack of availability of both of those things used his entire left arm. The arm was weaponized by the brace, but was still broken.

Takeda's body smacked off of the grassy ground, and Naruto immediately stepped a foot on his right wrist to pin that arm to the ground before holding his left arm, "Fuuuuck! That hurt!" He bit his lip to keep from yelling any further but looked down at Takeda whose head was still swimming from the blow he'd just taken. He'd better still have been feeling it. His forearm felt every bit of that shot and he'd been the one to throw it.

It was understandable. Naruto had just basically hit him with a loaded metal arm in the jaw.

The jaw, because his arm was currently too bulky to fit underneath his chin and hit him in the neck. Not that Naruto would have hit him in the neck. He wasn't going to crush a larynx in a schoolhouse brawl.

Having come outside a few moments into the battle, there had been an observer that had watched Naruto defend himself and end up victorious somehow.

Miu could only smile at the sight despite Naruto cursing to himself about how stupid he was for hitting him with his left and making himself look dumb in front of the building with all of the hot girls. Cheating, weapons, and dirty tricks aside, Naruto's hand-to-hand by itself had a very real basis.

He had no specific sets of movements, katas were nonexistent. It was dynamic attacking. Using accumulative pain itself as a technique against an enemy. Body movement and positioning over strength to defeat an opponent, 'The closest modern art that you could try and compare it to is Bujinkan Taijutsu, but even that's a stretch. His is more conditioned to survival and endurance than what grandfather told me about it.'

Waiting for his openings and ending it in a flash no matter what he had to do to create one or take advantage of it. Even if it put him at risk and caused him injury, it didn't matter. Broken bones, cuts, and bruises could and would heal, thus it was all inconsequential to him as long as the victory came. Not for competition, just to live.

They weren't the only ones to see. Kenichi and Ukita had arrived at the tail end of the fight from around the side of a building.

Ukita couldn't believe that he'd seen Takeda felled in such a manner. He got past Takeda's right hand? Nobody had gotten by Takeda's right hand since he'd joined Ragnarok. He'd managed to do it with only one direction of movement available to him.

Naruto kept holding onto his arm and biting his lip when he felt Takeda shift beneath him and realized that he was conscious again. Apparently it had just been a flash KO. But his left arm was laying out just as useless as his right arm was even though it was free, "Why aren't you trying to fight back or get up? You still have your left." Was he really that honorable that he wouldn't even use his left to get back up or get himself out of a scenario like this?

Granted, if Takeda had tried to get up, Naruto would have crushed his right wrist underneath his heel, but that wasn't the point.

"I can't." Takeda groused while on the floor, "My left arm is actually worse off than yours is. Even though for the time being yours is injured and is basically only dead weight from the shoulder on down… at least you can still use it at all." He looked hatefully at his useless limb, "I used to be a rising rookie boxer through most of high school, but one day I wound up getting myself injured so badly I had to stop. All because I decided to fight a battle for a friend. And did he ever remember me after it was all said and done? No!"

At this point Naruto had moved off of Takeda's right arm and simply stood nearby as he sat up and spoke.

"That's why…" Takeda said, punching the ground with his right hand, enough to elicit a dull thump from the dirt, "That's why putting anything or anyone ahead of yourself is only going to cost you in the end! I lost my left arm, my power hand, for someone that wouldn't even acknowledge I existed after I stopped boxing professionally. If you stick your neck out for a friend, you're just asking for your head to be cut off!"

"Maybe." Naruto said, surprising Takeda as he sat down on the ground with him from where he'd been standing previously, "You're probably right. Fighting for something other than myself will probably wind up with something terrible happening to me someday." It happened to his parents after all, "But… that's not going to change who I am, 'ttebayo."

"That doesn't make any sense." Takeda said, "You want to wind up like me? Take my advice kid. Even if you do your best to never let people down, it won't mean anything. Newsflash sunshine; the world doesn't care."

"Even if you're right, and the people I'll go to bat for won't do it for me…" Naruto said, before shaking his head at the thought. He and Kenichi had already fought back-to-back, even though he was relatively new at it, and Miu, he could only pity the fools against them when she would involve herself, "I don't want to wind up being some kind of despicable person that doesn't believe in anyone or anything. What's the point? I mean, what about your buddy over there?" Naruto pointed at Ukita who hadn't left and had in fact walked closer to them once the fight had died down.

Takeda actually seemed legitimately surprised that the Judo specialist had remained after his defeat. He entirely expected Ukita to have gone off to tell Kisara about his loss the moment it was clear Naruto had subdued him since he'd apparently seen it, "Ukita, what are you-?"

"You think I'd just walk out like that?" Ukita said roughly, smacking Takeda on the back of his head, "It's not just because we're supposed to be the 'Technique Trio' or whatever that I hang out with you idiot. If that was true we'd be around that prick Koga a lot more."

He then noticed how red Ukita's face was, especially around the nose and that Shirahama Kenichi was there too, moving over to help Naruto stand back up by pulling him to his feet by his good arm, "…Did you lose too?"

"T-That's not the point you bastard! You're not in it alone!"

"You two came here by yourselves." Kenichi interjected, still watching Naruto nurse his injured left arm that was smarting from his last attack. Not his best idea, "We usually only fight Ragnarok in whole packs, and they run away after it's clear they're gonna lose. You both did this together, and he stayed."

"I was gonna charge him and throw him onto his head too." Ukita boasted proudly, forgetting for a few seconds that they were supposed to be enemies, "…Uh, punk!"

Kenichi gave him a dry look. He didn't want to rock the boat any further, but still, "I already beat you."

"Yeah… it's good you didn't do that." Naruto deadpanned, "Just because my arm is hurt doesn't mean I still can't dodge." He softened up his stance though as he got back up off of the ground, "I don't know what pushed you guys into being punks, but you're not like the other guys I've had to fight. Why are you with Ragnarok?"

"Because my arm is paralyzed and there's nothing I can do but fight. Ragnarok wanted me, so I joined a few months ago."

"Because I got kicked out of the Judo Club at the end of last year's school term for the way I fight. So I joined."

"Well I think you guys are better than some stupid street gang." Naruto pointed at Takeda in particular, "I swear to God, I broke your arm. I had to. I kicked you as hard as I could and that thing was straight out at your side. You couldn't have possibly braced for it and you didn't even turn the right way to take it just so you could hit me right back. That's tough!"

Takeda pasted his normal smile back on his face with a bit of a humorless laugh, "Well for all intents and purposes you might have. I wouldn't know. I can't feel it. I told you I can't use it. It's paralyzed."

Ukita uncomfortably adjusted his sunglasses on his face and Naruto looked downright pale. So he could have done even more damage to Takeda's arm, and no one could know about it on the spot.

"…We need to go to the doctor."

XxX

(Later That Afternoon)

"School is a really unsafe place." Kenichi said out loud as they found themselves back in the clinic they'd been in not too long ago, "You fought in Gymnastics Club?" He then looked at Miu, "You watched him fight with his arm broken?"

Quite appropriately she looked rather embarrassed at admitting as much, but she wasn't going to lie about it, "I knew he could handle it… and I didn't want to seem too weird to the club since everyone was walking out and leaving at the time." Having her guest for the day get into a battle right outside of their club room was intimidating enough, "I didn't think he'd hit him with his actual bad arm though."

Kenichi then looked over at Naruto and shook his head at him, "Yeah, that doesn't seem very smart at all." In Naruto's possible defense, his brain half-ineffective to begin with and was probably further numbed by all of the pretty female skin showing all over that room at the time.

"It's fine." Naruto said, choosing to sit next to Ukita in order to assuage any paranoia Kenichi would have about the large youngster being there too. If Naruto of all people wasn't putting a good amount of distance away from him it probably wasn't anything to be wary of, "Akisame said I have to keep this thing on for a month. Screw that. I can take some chances with it."

"OW!"

"Yep, sounds about right for this place." Naruto said, upon hearing Takeda yell out in pain in the other room, "I feel your pain brother. Be strong." Kenichi even put his own hands together in a momentary pain, having been subjected to the pseudo-sadism of his astute and unassuming sensei as well.

Ukita, unlike everyone else there, wasn't just passing off that shout of pain as just something that went along with painfully effective medicine, "…We came here to treat Takeda's left arm in case you broke it, right?"

"Yeah."

"…That's the one that's not supposed to feel anything because it's paralyzed."

Silence fell over everyone in the room that realized what that meant before all four of the combat-adept teenagers scrambled out of their chairs and ran out of the waiting room into the back.

When Takeda Ikki's left arm was seen actually moving, the original afterschool plans of going to see Naruto's house were thoroughly forgotten.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Elsewhere in Town – Riverside)

'This is gonna be one of those days.' Shikamaru thought to himself as he found himself cornered underneath a bridge by several Ragnarok goons that had found him right after school had let out, 'I had to know this kind of thing was going to happen eventually. Doesn't make it any less troublesome though.'

"This is the guy?" The apparent leader of the bunch said as he looked Shikamaru over, "Why the hell would we have to be on the lookout for this skinny loser?" He had long, shaggy black hair, and wore blue pants with a rope belt and an open trench coat to apparently show off his musculature, "He looks like he's a second away from taking a good nap."

'I would have been if you didn't lead me here.' Shikamaru thought to himself with a roll of his eyes. He couldn't block the yawn that escaped his mouth, and apparently his current audience wasn't a fan of that, "So what do you guys want with me?"

Hearing this guy actually talk, and hearing that he didn't sound afraid at all didn't sit well with the leader of this group at all as he held up a fist at Shikamaru, "Hey, I didn't say anything to you, so wait to speak until spoken to!"

"You tell him Tsuji!"

"I am, so just chill out!" The aforementioned Tsuji Shinnosuke said before turning his attention to Shikamaru, "Now, I was supposed to see if you wanted a spot in Ragnarok for some reason, but I don't see what use you have, so I'm just gonna practice on you!" The rough-looking youth threw away his coat to show that he wasn't wearing a shirt underneath it amid cheers from his underlings, "I hope you can at least take a punch!"

"Can I just go? I really don't want anything to do with this."

"Weaklings don't get to pick and choose what they want. Someone's got to pay for wasting my time and since I don't have enough clout to take on one of the Fists it's up to you!" Tsuji said, getting into something of a fighting stance.

"Look, you can use your violent retard logic on the rest of these guys if you want to, but I just want to go home." Shikamaru's penchant for insulting people that kept him from being a lazyass didn't necessarily go over that well in this instance.

Tsuji growled in anger and rushed at Shikamaru, "You can't say things like that about people and get away with it! Now fight!"

"I don't punch or kick. It's not really my thing." Shikamaru said, holding his hands up seemingly as a way to defensively beg off even as he moved backwards to keep Tsuji from reaching him closely enough to punch him, "I don't really know martial arts, or much about fistfights. And I'm not one to take beatings either."

"Then what good are you supposed to be?"

Suddenly, Shikamaru stopped on his back heel and Tsuji's fist passed through his two hands, with a quick motion of his hands, Shikamaru ducked past the punch while holding his arms over his head before throwing them down and forward.

Tsuji had no clue as to what was going on before he found the world turned upside down and him landing on his head.

"What the hell?" One of the Ragnarok underlings said in disbelief as they saw their boss get thrown on top of his head, "He didn't even touch him! What just happened?"

"I told you." Shikamaru said, walking a few steps past Tsuji with his hands in his pockets, "I don't like to punch or kick, and I don't know much about martial arts… it's too troublesome. Those days are over."

Shuji's eyes suddenly popped open and he quickly spun around on his back to try and sweep out Shikamaru's legs but the pineapple-haired boy jumped and flipped back over him to avoid it. He wasn't the quickest or most nimble ninja in the world, but he could do one flip if nothing else.

Jumping up off of his back from the ground, Shuji clapped both of his hands together in front of his body and shot both of his hands forward in that motion to aim at Shikamaru's face, but with another quick movement of his hands around the boy's wrists, Shikamaru just moved right past him and kept on walking.

The Ragnarok executive couldn't free his own hands from each other, as if they were bound by steel, 'What the hell? Did this guy beat me with string?' "What did you do? Get me out of this?"

"I dunno. Won?" Shikamaru drawled as he walked away, "I don't know how to do any of the stuff I said, but the one thing I do know how to do is win." He then looked around at the others still apparently ready to fight, "…I don't even like doing _that_ though… because winning is usually a drag too. It just causes more trouble." With his right hand he made a hard yanking motion in the air, and several pairs of legs tripped up, forcing them to stumble into others that hadn't been disturbed.

"Hey, don't let that guy get away!" Tsuji ordered, trying to find a way to cut his hands free or something, "This isn't over! That wasn't a fight!" But it didn't matter because Shikamaru was halfway gone by then.

Run when you can, fight when you need to. Then run again.

'This is getting out of hand.' Shikamaru thought to himself as he continued to put distance between himself and the small group of gangsters that he'd tied up, 'What did _I_ do?'

XxX

(Hidden Warehouse in Town)

"A ninja you say?" An astute-looking young man with purple hair and round, thin glasses said while sitting comfortably in a chair that overlooked most of the facility available to only the Eight Fists of Ragnarok. He wore a white suit with a yellow neckerchief under the collar and a pair of black gloves with the numeral 'I' on them, "And you're certain about this?"

His question was answered with a nod by Freya who stood before him calmly in an apparent meeting of a few of the Fists, "Kisara can't seem to pin him down, and from what her underlings say about fighting with him it would say as much. There are rumors about Uzumaki Naruto being one. I've seen him move myself."

"And you didn't destroy him?" Walking into the conversation was a young man with light blue, almost silver, hair, slicked back with a yellow headband and a pair of net-like goggles over his eyes. His clothes consisted of a skin-tight black outfit underneath a large and open brown trench coat. His hands were shoved into his pockets but he pulled out one to adjust his goggles to reveal a black glove with a numeral for 'IV' on it, "Freya, are you getting soft on us?"

"That will be enough Loki." The white-suited youth said to deter a possible argument, "The last thing Ragnarok needs as everything comes together is infighting at a time like this. You know the rules. No picking fights with fellow Fists without the permission of Kensei-sama."

"Of course Odin-sama." Loki said with a large grin and a sweeping bow, almost facetious in the splendiferous nature of the gesture, "I'm just saying. The last thing I want is for Ragnarok to fall. You were saying Freya?"

She hadn't actually been saying anything, but with the buck thrown back her way, Freya merely pursed her lips at Loki slipping his way out of Odin's scrutiny for the time being, "The weapons he uses, the way he can avoid undesirable predicaments, and all of the other things. This isn't like the modern schools that claim to study and teach Ninjutsu. There's something… tested about it."

A calm smile crossed Odin's bespectacled face as he pushed his own fist against his cheek lazily, "According to my master, true ninjas are notorious for showing absolutely no allegiance to any person or organization outside of their own closed circle. But most of the young ones are well-protected from discovery until they are old enough to thrive on their own. Many never make it that far. Their life expectancy is extremely low, even as far as martial artists go."

A dedicated lot only taking absolute orders from their own. They were something of loose cannons, because they could not afford to allow anything to supersede the interests of the place that created them. It could never be determined who they were with and for how long that working relationship would last.

According to his master, only the very best were allowed to roam free and represent them from the shadows. In the seedy underground world of martial arts they were overtly dangerous, neither representing Katsujinken or Satsujinken, siding with no side and working against both for whatever benefited them.

Getting a hold of a young one, not yet fully ingratiated into the lifestyle and expectations for them by their clan on the outside world was something of a treasure that his master had sought after for years, for a reason he'd never known nor understood the purpose of. It was nearly impossible to do due to the zeal that most ninja parents had in regards to protecting their children and keeping their presence safe from the martial arts world until they were truly ready to face it down for the sake of the clan's advancement.

"So in your honest opinion Freya…" Odin continued to say, "…What do you think?"

"He defeated Takeda the Puncher." Freya said, crossing her arms over her chest as she informed her comrades of their happenings.

The former boxer with the useless left? As far as underlings went that was impressive, but at a Fist-level, Loki was convinced that wasn't much for acknowledging, "That's not such a big-."

"-With a broken arm." Freya added belated, purposefully trying to get to Loki after he'd tried to put her on the spot just a moment before. It felt good to feel the annoyance rise from him actually, "…That Kisara had broken a matter of days before fairly early into their fight. He apparently continued and managed a draw."

"Against our newest Fist?" It really was intriguing to hear more about. Odin actually stood up with his hands casually in his pockets as he did, "What do we think of him hmm?"

"He's already explicitly stated that he won't join Ragnarok." Freya knew as much from the correspondence her gang and Kisara's gang had with each other. They were still relatively close even though the latter had left the Valkyries months ago to go it alone, "According to your rules Odin-sama that means-."

"-That he can't be allowed to be used against us." Odin finished for her. He knew his own rules. Ragnarok couldn't just let the good fighters roam outside of their influence. They were preparing for a pending conflict against the best fighters in their age group and did not need any potential persons of interest to be used against them in their own hometown base of operations, "Loki, if you would, find the easiest way to get to him."

Loki just grinned and turned to leave the warehouse to get to work, "And? That's all you want me to do? Just find the easiest way to get to him? Nothing else? That doesn't sound very hard."

"If you find an opening, show some initiative if you would."

'I'll show initiative alright.' Loki thought to himself upon walking out onto the harbor-side property outside of the warehouse itself, "Of course. Not a problem." 'I'll show all of the initiative I need to in order to take this all away from you. A tactician such as myself would make a far better leader than someone like you.'

Freya just watched the smooth tactician leave and let her gaze linger on him for quite some time before turning back to the apparent leader of Ragnarok. She didn't trust him, or many of the people in Ragnarok, but Odin was strong. Extremely strong. And openly questioning and slandering other Fists was forbidden, "Odin-sama, is there something about Uzumaki Naruto that you know of? Something that makes a mere divisional upstart interesting?"

Odin didn't answer at first, pacing down from the elevated position of his seating before walking past her casually, "No one has ever procured the skills of a real ninja for various reasons in the past. If we don't get to him before the gang war I've been amassing the Eight Fists League for begins, _they'll_ take him themselves, somehow, someway."

He knew that to be the truth.

XxX

"Achoo!" Naruto sneezed his way out of holding an exceedingly heavy barrel up on his shoulders while in the midst of some strange squatting, kicking dance. His balance was thrown off and he forced to fall onto his back, dropping his load onto the basement dojo floor, "Gah, Goddamn arm!"

It was probably a better idea to wait to do that when he had both arms to help him steady that weight. But hey, a guy had to train when he was injured somehow.

XxX

(Later That Day – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

"Ha!" The top non-lethal Karate master in the world could only do his best version of preening like a peacock that he could find possible for himself as Kenichi was hard at work going through the rigorous task of sparring with Miu whom he could never seem to hit. Ever, "A Judo-user and a Taekwondo expert in a week? I must be doing something right!" But apparently not right now, "Stop backing off and counterattack!" He barked authoritatively.

"I'm trying!" Kenichi replied, blocking a high kick that almost fully disrupted his entire stance. Maybe if he didn't constantly find himself pitted against the apparent ultimate female fighting machine he'd see a chance easier, "I'd have done it by now if I could!"

"Talking messes up your concentration!" Miu responded with five quick punches that did nothing in helping Kenichi find his opening. He tried to grab for a limb to attempt a Jujitsu grappling attack but nothing surfaced out of it as when he thought he had the sleeve of her gi and turned to throw her Miu kicked him in the back and knocked him down.

A forward roll helped him stay in it, but upon wheeling around he found that Miu had already prepared to take advantage of his momentary lack of keeping his eyes on her. She had already jumped in his direction and spun her body to hook the back of her knee underneath his chin and around his neck. All of that force generated took him right off of his feet and down where he was then thoroughly choked by Miu's thigh and calf.

There were certainly worse ways to be robbed of one's oxygen, but even so, this meant that he'd lost. For the sake of not losing consciousness he tapped out, hoping that Sakaki wouldn't say something about no one letting him do that in a street fight.

With a roll of his eyes and a growl, Sakaki gestured for Miu to let him go, "Let him up." Nodding dutifully, Miu did just that and sat off to the side on her knees for the time being while waiting to be dismissed to return to her own training with her grandfather, "Kid you've got to get more used to her movements. Fighting someone over time should get easier, even if the both of you learn new tricks because you keep the same mannerisms."

An asskicking was good to keep a man humbled every now and then, which was why after warm-ups fighting Miu had been the first thing on the agenda for the day.

Kenichi could be as used to her as he wanted to be though. If she could fight circles around him she could fight circles around him and there wasn't much knowing how she'd do it would change about that.

He didn't say that of course, because Sakaki would be liable to kill him, 'Could I get a sparring partner that won't turn me inside out?' Kenichi thought to himself, head still spinning. He didn't want to fight with Miu. That was the last thing he wanted to do, but the first thing was also rather… ahem… physical.

"Alright Miu, you're done." Sakaki said, wishing he had a beer at the moment, "Go train with the Elder, I've got to work with the kid here."

She nodded and got up to leave the dojo building, sparing Kenichi a wave before exiting and heading back over to the main house to find her grandfather. Trotting inside she saw Apachai sitting dangerously close to the TV and figured that he would be fine there until she was done training and could start cooking dinner that night.

Before she could leave the main room and get to Hayato's quarters, she found her sight filled with Shigure hanging by her legs upside-down from the support beam, giving her a straightforward look.

She seemed to be waiting on an answer of some sort, and fortunately Miu knew what she wanted without her saying anything, "Sorry. He went home again to take care of his arm today." That was what Naruto had told them. Anyone that knew better could translate that into him saying that he was going to train even though he was hurt, "I think you might have spooked him a little too much."

Her expression didn't change, but Shigure sighed and went back to hanging out up on the support beam instead of on the floor level of the building like everyone else. She taught Kenichi when the lessons were available, but for the most part all she did was hang out and watch. He treated her like a sensei because she _did_ teach him, but weapons were not his chosen thing, and they were her passion, "I thought he was injured."

"He is."

"You said he fought… recently."

"He did. He won without using…" Well Naruto did use his arm, the bad one, so that would have been a complete lie, "Well, he won." A sly look came over her face upon realizing that Shigure was actually gloomy, as hard as it was to believe, "Do you want to train him? Why didn't you just tell him that?" The direct approach might have worked better.

The answer didn't come from Shigure, but instead from Miu's grandfather, "Your friend has a severe mistrust of adults, whether he knows it or not, probably brought on by the fact that most of his dealings with them were with us."

Enough said from the look on Miu's face. She got it, because until recently all of his dealings with the masters happened to involve them kicking his tail. If that was really the reason then no wonder he always looked so jumpy at the dojo all the time.

In hindsight that was probably the reason he was always so skittish about going there, willing to duck it at all costs.

Hayato continued, "Chances are, Shigure's last meeting with him didn't help relieve that very much either." Shigure didn't even bother looking down from where she was. They told her to follow him from school and figure out where he lived. She figured the next logical step would be to talk to him, and that was the most direct way she could think of to make him sit still, "You broke into his house dear."

"…Didn't mean to scare him." It was done purely with the best of intentions, most assuredly. As well as interest and a touch of excitement at possibly getting to actually teach some techniques to someone like all of the others were getting to.

She had seen him try other things before, during times when he would fight with Miu. And it was intriguing, because he was very raw. Self-taught in basically all of it, and she knew because it showed even in the way he held the manriki-gusari the other day. It was what felt comfortable instead of what felt appropriate, and it irked her somewhat to see him do that.

As Miu entered her grandfather's living space and prepared for him to instruct her for the day she wondered aloud, "What's with the sudden interest in Naruto-kun though?" She thought he was interesting, but that was only out of curiosity since he was the only kid her age she'd had a semi-cordial relationship with.

Part of his apprehension to show his face around much might have had something to do with the fact that until lately no one there other than her seemed to pay him any mind unless he was trying to break in, and none of that attention had ever particularly been convivial.

"All I can say at the moment is that it's far more than just his use of weaponry catching Shigure's eye." Hayato replied rather cryptically, "Now let's begin." Putting the eerie answer to that question aside for a while at least, Miu was prepared to get her instruction for the afternoon, 'It's for the best right now that neither of you remember.'

* * *

**And that's chapter.**

**Man, some of you guys are impatient. Come on now, four or five chapters isn't even close to being reasonable to resolve any inherent story plot point like getting Naruto a master or a teacher. There are also people that want him to own everybody right off the bat. Why? Damn. What the hell is fun about that? **

**And that's not the only thing that people are quick on the trigger of wanting resolved either. I guess it's this instant gratification world man… it's a curse. Nobody can take letting it build up for a bit. He's got flaws. Several fatal flaws that will need to be resolved over time.**

**I get reviews saying he's too strong, some saying he's too weak. Blah. Whatever. I don't care. If I gave the impression for a second that there would be chakra, I'm not sure where that impression was garnered.**

**Alright, I'm back in college for my last semester ever. It's making my head spin just thinking about it and I'm not even a week in yet. But let's do this! The world is my oyster and I'm gonna shuck it!**

**Kenchi out.**


	6. Divide and Conquer

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Damn it, why?

**Chapter 6: Divide and Conquer**

* * *

Through the town streets, Naruto walked with his arm freed from the brace and wrappings that had plagued him for the entire last two weeks. It would have been longer, but much to the surprise of everyone he'd somehow broken it off of his arm once he himself figured he was healthy enough to get rid of it.

Keep the hell away from Ryouzanpaku unless he had to. Something about those people sent shivers up his spine even when they weren't paying him any mind. And Shigure's little 'suggestion' to him didn't really sit easy with him either.

She wouldn't really make him go there by force would she? No, there's no way the more level-headed members would allow such a thing… would they? But then why did she enter his house, just to check out what he had? He had to ask Kenichi about just what extent his masters were willing to go to if they were really that interested in something.

And speaking of the brown-haired, band-aid clad boy, Naruto hadn't been travelling alone either, as Kenichi and his little sister Honoka were with him, enjoying a day off for once from his training.

"Lemonhead, I thought your arm was broken." Honoka said, clutching tightly to Kenichi's arm as she looked over at Naruto and took some gratification out of seeing her nickname annoy him, "Last time you came to the house you looked like a cyborg."

"The brace wasn't that big." Naruto replied to the preteen girl who just laughed at him. She usually got a kick out of Naruto for some reason, but hey, if kids liked him they liked him, "I'm just so awesome I don't heal like the rest of you humans do." Speaking of healing fast, he looked over at Kenichi, "Man it's amazing how you never have any lasting bruises after training with those Ryouzanpaku guys so much."

That was because two of them were doctors and knew how to patch him up well enough to heal overnight after they were done working him to the bone. Goodness, and he'd been contemplating doing more training by moving in? What he was doing already was utterly exhausting.

Honoka noticed her older brother momentarily shiver at the thought of his training being brought up and she had to wonder just what those people were doing to make her brother seem so flaky at them being brought up… and why he kept going back if alluding to their training gave him bad flashbacks.

"Lemonhead, what do they do to onii-chan every day?" Honoka asked, looking over at the only person she knew as someone that could actually tell her what was going on at that dojo, "You know don't you? Are they bullying him?"

That was… a complicated question to answer, "…Define bullying."

Naruto looked up at Kenichi and saw him making the gesture to cut it out and not tell her, "Ah-ha, no one bullies your big brother Honoka!" The nervous older sibling said to save face, "Honest, the people there are making me stronger! Like a hero!"

"Really?" Honoka asked with a curious look. Strong was never really the kind of word she associated with Kenichi, "Stronger like Lemonhead?" Bringing up Naruto in that sort of comparison put a proverbial dark cloud over Kenichi's head, and a major grin of arrogance to Naruto's face. How did she even know Naruto was supposed to be tough?

"Aww… go on Tidbit." Naruto said, throwing his arms up behind his neck, "Seriously, go on. I want to hear more. Don't stop talking about me."

"Why do you train Lemonhead?"

Naruto just raised an eyebrow. He just did. If he didn't train he wouldn't be worth a damn as a ninja, and that was the only thing he'd ever intended to do, "Well, because I want to be the best ninja there is. I told too many important people I would be, and my mom and dad left me their program for a reason."

"Your mother and father?" That got Kenichi's attention broken from having nightmares of running that kind of program himself and set onto the topic of his friend's parents. He'd never seen them. Naruto never even referred to them in the past, "So they're your masters?" Naruto just shook his head, "Eh? They're not? But-."

"No. After you're accepted as a lower-level ninja your parents are supposed to train you from that point forward, but if you don't have any you're on your own." Naruto said a bit hollowly, "My parents can't train me because they aren't around anymore. So I do it myself, with plans they left to use for when I came back."

Even Honoka could tell that he was alluding to his parents being dead, "…Lemonhead."

Once again, Kenichi had to wonder just how much about his apparent best friend did he really know. Did Miu or any of the masters know about it? And just how long did he live alone for? Apparently he'd done a better job of keeping his secrets than he'd first thought.

Reaching the small shopping area of the town that they'd been travelling to, Naruto looked at his own cell phone, "Okay, so if you don't want to come along to go see me fill out order forms for stuff from a surplus weapons store we should probably break off for a bit." He said, trying to change the subject before walking off suddenly, "It should take about thirty minutes I'd say!"

Before either of the Shirahama siblings could say anything, their old friend had somehow disappeared into the very small crowd and left the two of them by themselves so he could do whatever he'd set out to do with them that day.

The two of them got back on their way as there were still stores Honoka wanted to go to with her brother on his day off.

She still held onto her older brother's arm in a clingy fashion, but it was tighter than before. Obviously, thinking about Naruto and his lack of familial ties got to her. Honoka loved him dearly and he knew it. And she was probably thinking about what it was like to not have him, or their mother, or their father.

Come to think of it, Miu didn't have her parents either, but she had her grandfather, as odd and as scary as he could be, and she had the others at Ryouzanpaku too. So what did Naruto have, if anything at all?

And how did he possibly train? For all of the mental trauma it gave him, his masters made sure he got everything he needed to improve. Seriously. Ragnarok underlings didn't even bother either of them that much anymore because it would just lead to an asskicking, whether they had weapons or not.

"Alright." Kenichi said, trying to get the day back on track, "First stop, bookstore! Naruto'll catch up there looking for some new manga." He exclaimed, getting Honoka to stick out her tongue and let go of his arm. He might have liked reading, but she sure as hell didn't. But as they started getting close, Kenichi saw a few shifty-looking people hanging around the entrance, apparently looking around for someone.

By now, they were conditioned to know that people looking around for people meant that people were looking around for them. And those people looking around for them wanted to kick the crap out of them usually.

Not today. Normally he had enough misgivings about the useless fighting, but Honoka was with him today.

"Ah, no bookstore, nevermind." Kenichi said, quickly turning in a different direction, little sister in tow, "So where do you want to go first?" 'Damn it, am I the only person that can put this all aside for one day?'

It seemed so, because the second Honoka started pulling him in the direction of the store that she wanted to go to, he had to dig his heels in and stop her, because she was taking them right in the direction of even more bad guys, and this time they actually saw him.

"Shirahama." One of them said, punching into their palm upon spotting their target, "Loki-sama wants you to come with us. He wants to have a little talk about you, your friend, and Ragnarok."

"What's a Ragnarok?" Honoka asked before Kenichi suddenly picked her up underneath one arm and ran away from the gangsters, "Onii-chan!"

"Why does this always have to happen!?" Kenichi shouted as he sprinted as fast as he could, leaving the enemy in the dust. They weren't even getting close. Huh, all of that training was working out after all.

From a window view in the nearby bookstore that Kenichi had been about to enter before everything went crazy, sitting in a lounge chair was a silver-haired young man in a brown coat, calmly sipping at a cup of coffee and reading.

Setting his book aside, he picked up a walkie-talkie he had on his person to contact someone, "Number 20, keep the grunts on Shirahama. Let me know when you've gotten him cornered."

"_Whatever you say Loki-sama!"_

XxX

(With Naruto)

A small shop nestled near the interior of the shopping area served as Naruto's destination on this day. He'd managed to get the ramifications of Kenichi's questioning out of his head so that he could do something

"Hmm." Naruto said to himself, looking between two example pieces of differing shuriken, "What's the difference between the four-star, barbed six-star, and curved four-star shuriken?"

"Kid, I don't know." The bored shopkeeper said, waiting behind the counter for Naruto to make his selection so he could go get the order forms for him, "The curved four-star cuts better than the regular one that'll stab into stuff better. I don't know. I just sell them."

Naruto focused intently. Deep in thought trying to break down which ones he wanted. The regular four-star had been his tried and true, but the six-star looked cooler, as did the curved four-star. He had gone through way more different makes of shuriken just to narrow it down to three.

They all cost the same; 450 yen a pop, and that made it harder since he couldn't eliminate anything by price. The clerk could at least help a little though. It wasn't like there was anyone else in the store but him.

The bells to the door rang to indicate that someone had come in, and the clerk droned off a low-spirited 'welcome' before he noticed just what wonderful sight had come in and quickly perked up, "Welcome ladies! Is there anything I can do for you today?" He hopped from behind the counter and weaved through the aisles to reach the front.

Naruto rolled his eyes and kept his attention on his shopping until he realized that whoever had entered the store hadn't said anything to the shopkeeper and didn't happen to be browsing. Moving over to the closest aisle, Naruto popped his head up over the shelf and cursed at the sight of four members of the female weapon-users that had run into him and Niijima quite a while ago.

The Valkyrie unit.

"Damn." Naruto hissed quietly to himself as he ducked back down and got low to the floor. They were carefully creeping up each aisle at both ends, looking to corner whoever was inside, so they were probably looking for him.

He was in the back of a crowded weapons store. That was _not _the place for someone like him to fight and win. And they all had weapons that were good for tight quarters; dual tonfa, dual sai, a pair of iron fans, and last but not least a spear.

Hell no. Fuck that.

Carefully hopping the cashier's desk as quietly as he could, Naruto crept to the back door of the store and quickly made his way through the rear.

"How did they even find me today?" Naruto whispered to himself, shutting the door back behind him as he felt three presences attack him from behind. On instinct, Naruto turtle and allowed three hard attacks to bounce off of his thick, loaded down backpack before he spun and swept the leg of whomever he could reach, getting two female cries as their feet were knocked from beneath them.

Scrambling to get some space, Naruto turned around to see that he'd knocked down a girl with a staff and a girl with nunchaku in her possession. Okay. He could definitely deal with that pretty quickly and leave.

*CRACK*

"Ow! Motherfucker!" Naruto recoiled after a whip hit him right across his right shoulder, stripping the shirt and the skin off of the place where it made contact, "God, a whip? Seriously?"

"Well, Loki-sama's scouts were right." The whip-wielding Valkyrie member said as her two allies got up, "You were here after all ninja. I thought you'd be harder to find after separating from Shirahama, but I guess even ninjas need to buy weapons too."

The two girls from before got back up and went for him again, but unlike the whip-user that had managed to obtain a surprise attack on him, the other two didn't have that. the staff user lagged behind the girl with nunchaku, choosing to poke quick jabs at him with the end of it while her partner took wider swings.

Having backpedaled enough, Naruto stopped on his back foot and shot himself forward, sliding through both girls' legs, "Hebi Arukkata (Snake's Tread)!" He wound up behind them as they scrambled to turn around. Instead of letting them do so, Naruto jumped at them and hit them with his whole body to knock them down over each other to the ground, tangling each of them up in each other's limbs.

"What kind of street gang are you people?" Naruto said before taking a second lash from the whip on his bag, "Didn't you get it the first time?" As the girl started pulling it back, wondering why she didn't harm him, Naruto sprinted right at her and grabbed her weapon hand, pulling her entire arm in front of himself to block a swing of another girl's nunchaku, "That won't work!"

Hey, it got her to drop the whip.

Cringing at hearing a girl yell like that in pain, Naruto kicked the second girl away hard into the wall of the alley and let the first one fall to her knees holding the inside of her arm where she'd been stricken by her teammate so that he could take off running.

The reason being that the back door to the weapon shop that he'd escaped from was thrown open with the rest of the Valkyries, including an eighth that he presumed had been out front in case he got out that way, coming out to attack him as well.

Running away was _not_ his first chosen solution to most of his problems. But two of those girls had lethal weapons on them. The most lethal thing he had in that bag at the moment was a kunai. He had to lose these chicks and find Kenichi and Honoka, because one of them said something about knowing that they separated.

XxX

(With Kenichi – Nearby Park)

"This sucks!" Kenichi said, turning around to find that there was a new slew of Ragnarok goons chasing him. He couldn't even stop to call Naruto to let him know about it since Honoka was covering his pocket that had his phone in it.

Eventually though, they reached a high ledge leading to an upper level of the park where Kenichi set his sister down out of reach before handing her his phone, "Call Naruto and tell him what's happening while I try to handle this." He said as he jumped back down in time to face the first of his attackers that threw a punch his way. With his hand crooked at the wrist he knocked the attack down and redirected his hand back up to strike directly under his enemy's chin, "Crane's Neck Blow!"

He didn't have much time to take pride in how well his attack worked as he had more to do as he ducked underneath the swing of a pipe at his head. A quick series of punches to the face dispatched that foe.

Sitting up on the ledge out of danger, Honoka could only watch Kenichi in a bit of awe. What happened to her big brother that read books and watered flowers? Apparently he still existed, but this was a more assertive Shirahama Kenichi.

One that could fight for himself instead of just take what came his way.

"What's with this kid?" One of the unbattered assailants said as he watched his pack of attackers fall one-by-one, "Who the hell are these guys?"

"The sole disciple of the masters of Ryouzanpaku!" Kenichi shouted before muttering 'as far as I know' as he stood off with the last two, "Ragnarok, you can attack me, but trying to get my sister involved is unforgivable! Honoka go hide somewhere and call Naruto-san! Stop watching!"

Nodding to her brother's demand, Honoka got up and started to run, hoping that their yellow-headed friend was somewhere nearby.

With that handled, Kenichi stood at the ready and proceeded to go on the attack against the seemingly overmatched street thugs. The last thing they'd expected after all of the chasing had been for him to go all cornered lion on them. But that was what he did.

By the time a new slew of adversaries reached their comrades, they were already down and out of it, with Kenichi standing over them looking over what he'd done with a slight pant to his breathing.

The sound of clapping had the small new crew give way as a new person arrived.

"I can see why Kisara's pack had trouble with you if that's how you handle something like this." Slick silver hair, weird goggles over his eyes even odder than the ones that Naruto chose to wear on his forehead, and a brown trench coat, "You're not some run-of-the-mill street punk trying to play tough guy are you? Someone trained you."

"Who are you?" Kenichi asked, keeping his guard up as the older young man walked past his smirking underlings that gave way to their apparent leader.

"You don't know who I am, but you've been fighting my gang?" Well not by choice, but yes basically, "I am the Fourth Fist of Ragnarok, the combat strategist of the group. Loki."

And Kenichi froze up, as he hadn't come face-to-face with any of the Fists before. He'd been taking his licks dealing with Kisara's elites, but this time he was fighting one of the head honchos. The only one he knew of in Nanjou Kisara had broken Naruto's arm in their first meeting.

The look on his face was absolutely priceless to most of the others as they laughed at his apparent misfortune.

"I can see you're stunned." Loki said before suddenly pulling a taser from his pocket that he quickly lunged at Kenichi with, fully intending to shock him without mercy, "Die!"

Kenichi dodged several jabs at his head and body from the crackling taser, 'Compared to Miu's these movements are so sloppy.' Grabbing the collar of the attacker's coat and shirt, Kenichi spun around and hurled him straight over his shoulder, slamming him to the ground with dominant force, "Oogoshi!" 'I can counter these!'

With the opponent down, Kenichi kicked the taser out of his hand and stood over, preparing for him to get back up, "Ugh… what in the-?"

Everyone that had been watching looked utterly surprised. Even Kenichi himself was surprised, "That was way easier than I thought it would have been." He poked at the downed Ragnarok member with his foot, but all he did was groan in pain on the ground, "I'm… kind of confused."

"What's there to be confused about?"

Turning around, Kenichi saw an exact copy of the same man as before standing on the ledge behind him. The same expression, same grin, same clothes, same hands-in-pockets stance. Twins?

"Ah, there's the real Loki-sama!"

"Of course. He used one of his shadows. As if he would need to fight this guy himself."

The new Loki just walked along the edge of the ledge as Kenichi kept looking up at him suspiciously, "You see, I don't like going into battle myself, especially without a plan. A lot of the other Fists don't get it. They're so obsessed with proving how strong they are by just beating up their opponents. But strength of mind is sometimes more important, isn't it?"

"I don't know just what you're talking about." Kenichi admitted, still ready to be attacked from either side.

"Of course you don't, because you're closer to the rest of them than you are to me." Loki said, gesturing condescendingly down to his enemy, "You don't understand the beauty of a well thought out strategy. What kind of rush you get from achieving what you want out of a fight without having to risk yourself at all. The flawless victory."

Looking around at his surroundings, Kenichi didn't get it. He didn't get it at all, "This doesn't seem like much of a plan to me." It was more or less the same thing that happened to him all of the time only now he was split off from either Naruto or Miu.

"It doesn't huh?" Loki said, sitting down on the ledge as he feigned looking around over the distance, "Well then where's your ninja pal? Didn't you send your little sister off to call him? I don't think he'll be coming. He's got problems of his own to deal with."

"Tch, these guys can't stop Naruto-san. No way."

"I didn't say I was using my own guys did I?" Loki said with a huge grin, "I never even said that it was guys at all."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – With Naruto)

As if being chased by Valkyries wasn't enough, now Naruto definitely couldn't stop to try and fight them one at a time.

"Seriously Honoka, give me a street sign or something!" Naruto shouted, phone to his ear as he sprinted down the street past the bystanders. The younger girl's constant chattering wasn't really bearing any useful fruit, "Don't worry about your brother, he'll be fine, just tell me where you are!"

He didn't think Ragnarok would hurt a kid like her just to get a shot at maiming them, but that was a risk he didn't plan on taking.

'If I don't make sure she's fine before worrying about Kenichi he'll never forgive me!' Best friend's little sister came before best friend. That had to be a man law somewhere.

"_I don't know! Ah, okay, I'm six blocks away from the park… and there's a corner store!"_ That wasn't specific at all. Seriously, six blocks away? He could spit six blocks in any direction away from the park and probably hit a store on a corner. Come on Honoka, you're smarter than that.

'I'm running around in circles here!' Naruto thought to himself. All he knew was that she was somewhere a few blocks away from the park. That wasn't much help. Maybe a higher point of view would? Stopping in the street, Naruto reached into his bag to fish out his grappling hook, beginning to aim it for an elevated position only for a small blur to crash into his legs and knock him off of his feet.

"Lemonhead I found you!" Oh. Honoka. That was lucky.

Wait…

"Honoka!" Naruto quickly sat up to find Kenichi's little sister red-faced and out of breath holding onto both of his legs, "I thought you didn't know where you were!"

"I don't! But I started hearing you on the phone and your voice out loud and I followed it here!" Was he really yelling at her that loud? No wonder people were quick to get out of his way. She didn't let up her grip on his legs either, not that he could blame her, "It's bad! Bad guys are trying to beat up onii-chan!"

"Hey, it's okay. Don't start crying alright?" Naruto wasn't much for soothing people, but he did his best to take control of the situation like a responsible adult would… or what he knew of responsible adults. God, he didn't even have a decent adult role model, "Kenichi'll be fine, and we'll go get him if he's still in the park, but right now we've got to get you out of trouble."

Honoka wiped her eyes as Naruto seemed to be calm despite what was going on. And her brother was actually the one fighting, so if they could deal with it so could she, "What's even going on?"

"Well…" Naruto said, getting up and picking Honoka up as well, "Ah… that's hard to explain. Mostly because I don't know why this started." But it was happening, and they had to deal with it, "Don't worry. I'll call for help for Kenichi, get you somewhere safe, and then go back and get him for you."

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

"…Right after I deal with them." Turning around, Naruto saw two members of the Valkyries coming at him with a flail and a pair of sai, "I'm not fighting you with a little girl here! Come on already!" From his bag, Naruto quickly pulled out a grappling hook and threw it up at a building's edge before reeling in himself and Honoka who screamed as they soared through the air and landed on an awning, "If Kenichi asks, I didn't do that with you."

Apparently the pair of Valkyries were a bit miffed that he tried in their opinion to hide behind a child to keep from having to fight and proceeded to give chase, but with him trying to take to the roofs he was even harder than before to keep track of, even when they started coordinating their efforts again to surround the streets that he could attempt to come down from.

That wound up being just perfect for Naruto. Really, because they wound up splitting up themselves apart so they could cover the streets around a block of buildings that he couldn't jump the streets of. Thus he could start picking them off systematically until he found his way out.

On a rooftop, Naruto gestured to Honoka to be quiet before making sure his hook was in place securely. In his sights down on the street was perhaps the most dangerous Valkyrie, the one with the spear of all things, along with another with iron fans. Hey, if Shigure could walk around in public with a sword, why not?

"I didn't pack any of my good stuff." Naruto said, rifling back through his bag only to find nothing that he could use for a safe stealthy takedown, "I didn't think I'd be doing this today either. Come on, hold tight and be quiet."

Putting Honoka on his back he swung down from the roof and let out a loud whistle to get her to turn around. Honoka screaming didn't hurt to get her attention either, "Cannonball!" Predictably she did so while holding the spear in a way she could defend herself, and Naruto was moving to generate enough force to break it with a kick and knock her and her partner out as well.

Stumbling slightly upon landing, Naruto broke into a straight-ahead run until he heard calls from the other girls that discovered their downed comrades. With that he found the first building he could duck into and did just that.

A sigh of relief passed from him when he saw the ladies after him run past where he had hidden with Honoka without even considering he'd have been in there for a moment. Alright, so they didn't see him go in at all.

Now that they had a second to themselves, both of the escapees looked around at their surroundings with Honoka getting a tad annoyed, "Oh, not another dojo place." And indeed they were inside of a dojo. Jeez, that was a really traditional interior for being situated in the middle of town, "Why'd you take us here Lemonhead?"

"I didn't want to." Naruto argued in turn, putting her down so that she could walk on her own, "But since we're here anyway let's see if we can keep you here until I can bring Kenichi for you. And while you're at it use his phone to call Ryouzanpaku."

"You mean the place with the big-boobied kitsune that bewitched onii-chan?"

"What?" Naruto said aloud before taking a minute to think. Ryouzanpaku only had two women there and-. Okay, that was it. Definitely, "Oh! Yeah. That's the place. Do that." As they continued to walk through the dojo, eventually they found someone sitting at the head of it all, "Hello?"

Sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, there was a very short old man in a casual kimono, bald with some grey hair on the sides, bushy eyebrows, and a short goatee. It seemed that he was deep in meditation, so Naruto just sat down directly in front of him and waited for him to acknowledge that they were there.

At least until Honoka went up closer to him and waved her hand around in front of his face before feeling his breath beneath his nose, "This old man's sleeping Lemonhead." What? No way, "Old man wake up!"

"Huh?" The eyes of said old man popped open and he looked around, smacking his lips until he saw a little girl and an older boy sitting down in front of him. And just like that he seemed to pull a short staff that was still bigger than his body out that he proceeded to thwack Naruto over the head with, "What do you kids think you're doing breaking into my dojo?"

"We didn't break in!" Naruto replied, clutching the top of his head where he'd been stricken, "The door was open!"

The old man just stared at Naruto for a few seconds before tilting his head, "Why are you holding your head youngster?"

"Because you just hit him! You're still holding the stick you used!" Honoka stood up waving her arms around indignantly, "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _you_? I didn't order takeout today, so you can go with the delivery boy back to the restaurant! I won't pay!"

Was this old guy for real? Rubbing the bump on his head, Naruto looked around the room that he and Honoka had walked into. Yes, this was a real-deal dojo, which meant that this guy had to be strong enough to handle some punks even if he was a tad… off.

Naruto backed up a bit while remaining seated, "Look, uh I need to go help my friend because I think he's in trouble. This is his little sister and I can't take her with me, so could she just stay here until we come back? It shouldn't be any longer than an hour. Honoka's a good girl."

Come on, diffuse the situation with a grin. Everybody liked smiles and grins didn't they? Even cantankerous old people.

Instead of saying anything else, he seemed to doze off again and that was more or less the last straw as far as leaving Honoka there went, "Okay, forget it. We'll just go. That's what I get asking an adult for help I guess." His experience with most adults was never really positive since most didn't seem to care about what was happening around them if it wasn't their problem.

"Lemonhead…"

"I know Tidbit, but I can't just run in there with you on my back."

At least he could sit there and think for a minute, and it had to be only a minute because he'd already wasted ten since he'd found Honoka. Drumming his fingers on the wooden floor frantically, Naruto tried his best to think of something that could help.

"You are an extremely impatient child." The old man said after the sound of Naruto's fingertips repeatedly hitting the ground apparently got to him, "You seem to have no faith in your elders either. A problem for one that wishes to grow stronger like you. Or are you arrogant enough to think you can do it alone?"

For someone that had been talking like a senile old man moments ago, he seemed to shift gears very quickly. He had an air about him similar to a master… and he was holding a staff, inside of a dojo.

Crap, this guy was a master.

Even so, pride reared itself first, "I'm not impatient." Naruto said, glaring slightly at the old man, "I just want to go help my friend."

"You didn't deny being arrogant."

"…Because I am. So what?" Naruto replied, puffing out his chest, "If I didn't wake up every day thinking I could do anything in the world if I tried hard enough, I would have quit a long time ago. What's wrong with believing in yourself?" Especially when no one else was around to do it for you. Even his own partner stopped believing that they were worth a damn years ago, "If I didn't who else would?"

"There is a thin line between confidence and arrogance." The elder fighter said, "See that you take care to mind that line. It will get you or someone you care for hurt one day." He didn't mean to word it as he'd get Honoka hurt, nor meant that he'd be the one to do it himself, "There are people around that you can trust. Just some advice from an old man."

Naruto stared straight ahead at the old man before squinting his eyes at him, "Who are you?"

The old man just set a content smile on his face and closed his eyes again as the front door to the dojo opened and closed, "Grandfather are you still here?" A girl's voice called from the front of the building, "…I really hope he didn't head back out wandering again."

"Finally." Naruto said to himself in a bit of relief. That person sounded perfectly reasonable. If he was nice and could find some modicum of charm, maybe he could still leave Honoka here safely, "Just sit tight. I'll see if we still can't keep you here."

Quickly jogging from the back out to the front, Naruto decided that the direct approach would be the best and quickest way to get this done, "Hey, ah the door was open when I came in and I was-." He then stopped when he saw the girl that was someone he'd seen before. Older than him, darker toned skin, short black hair, scar on her cheek. That night outside of the café, "You're…"

Freya looked up from where she'd been taking off her shoes at the door, equally surprised to find Naruto there as well, "Wait a minute, aren't you-?" She then looked down and saw that Naruto was still wearing his shoes, "You're really going to disrespect this place like that?"

Naruto had no clue what she was talking about until he realized he'd been in such a rush that he didn't remove his footwear, which really could have caused some damage to the floor due to the way his soles were made, "Hell…"

XxX

(With Kenichi – At the Park)

Inexplicably, Kenichi stood over the second Loki that had been talking so much before jumping down to fight him. This time a baton was what he'd tried to use to deal him some sort of injury. It was admittedly harder to deal with than the taser, but he still managed to defeat his enemy again.

"Heh, heh, heh…" Oh no. Not another one, "Well I think I've seen enough to figure out how to finish off you two for Valkyrie. It's not even that difficult." One last Loki said upon entering the fray, just as calm, cool, and collected as the last two had been, "It's actually so easy I don't see why she didn't get more of us to lend her underlings to do it."

'Some tactics.' Kenichi thought to himself, not letting his guard down despite all of the fighting he'd been doing, 'All he's doing is throwing bodies at me. What is this one, another fake?' He wasn't even going to give him the chance to pull out a weapon of some sort this time and made the first move.

Rushing forward to land the first blow, Kenichi shot out a Karate-based punch, only Loki to simply punch forward as well. Loki's reach was longer, thus his hand landed in Kenichi's chest fully extended, but it was such a shallow hit that it didn't do any more damage than a casual bro punch.

It should have been left at that, but it wasn't as another blow was taken The feeling of Loki's punch was like he'd taken four full-power shots from anyone else that knocked him backward and sprayed blood from his mouth.

What kind of Karate was that? He punched him once! His arm never reeled back in! How did he feel four?

Kenichi's knees got shaky after taking the unexpected attack and Loki just looked smug, "I'm not one of my shadows. I'm the real deal." Not letting up and grinning all the while, Loki rushed him again and wantonly hit him with more punches to the body before landing one to the face, just for the sake of pummeling him, "I've had one of my most trusted underlings watching you and your friend as much as she could all day. Do you want to know what your weakness is? What makes you so easy to take out?"

"Not really!" Kenichi tried to retaliate in kind but it just led to more of a beating. Getting knocked back again, Kenichi saw Loki move for a kick and saw a chance to catch it and eliminate it from the equation, but he mistook where it was aimed. Instead of at his body it was aimed at his groin, and it was faster than he'd anticipated.

There wasn't anything he knew how to do to stop that, and he took it full force. His body immediately shut down and he felt face-first to the ground, coughing and clutching at his jewels. No one he'd fought had so blatantly gone for such a dirty strike. Not a single one.

"It's so simple isn't it?" Loki said, walking circles around the downed Kenichi, "Most men don't think about it because it rarely crosses their minds to do something like that to another man. It's dishonorable or something, I don't know. I don't get it." Ryouzanpaku's new disciple could only glare up at Loki when he set his foot on his head derisively, "You want to know what your weakness is? You're all alone. I don't get why you weren't just pummeled en masse from the start."

Because he usually had someone around to keep him from fighting in situations that he wasn't ready for. Either Miu or Naruto. He thought he was doing well and was shaping up into a good fighter, but a Fist with dirty tricks did this to him.

"All by yourself, you can't do anything." Loki reached down and grabbed Kenichi by the hair, "How did you see this ending exactly? I want to know. You're one man, and with your buddy that makes two." He heard Kenichi mutter something from the ground and he cupped his hand to his ear to listen, "What was that?"

"…Don't think you can decide things like that on your own!" Kenichi pushed up off of the ground and knocked Loki's foot from his head before standing back up, this time in a different starting stance than before, seemingly in a different discipline of martial arts entirely, "I'm not done yet."

All the silver-haired trickster had to do was take a look at how wobbly Kenichi's legs were to know that it was all just bravado, "You're a pretty tough guy aren't you? But yeah, you are done. If I'm wrong-." Once again he attacked his vulnerable foe, daring him to do anything to prevent him from striking him down, "-Prove it!"

Anticipating Loki again, he was caught off-guard when two others that had previously been standing back and watching grabbed at his arms. Kenichi was able to remain free and actually defeated them with stiff, concise punches to the face, one for each, but once again, Loki's attack struck home before he could get back to him.

First with the tips of the fingers on his hand, then the fist, then the flat of the back of his hand, then the wrist, and then the elbow, "Daigo Shougeki Ken (Fifth Impact Punch)!"

Every single joint in his right arm went into one fluid motion that made five different devastating blows. That was too advanced for him to take. It wasn't just the dirty tricks, but they did belie the fact that Loki actually knew what he was doing to a certain extent.

"How about that!?" Loki said as Kenichi crumpled once again, "Like I said, it doesn't matter how good you are kid, you're by yourself! You're not strong enough to take on Ragnarok alone! Not a chance!"

"Mind if I cut in?"

The sound of flesh being hit and bodies hitting the ground sounded out in Loki's ears and he turned to where most of his underlings had been lying in wait to see white hair in a ponytail and an easygoing smile.

"You're Takeda Ikki aren't you?" Loki said with a grin at seeing one of Kisara's enforcers front and center. Since he was the one that knocked his men out he probably wasn't there to take back news for his apparent boos, "What's wrong? Ragnarok not appealing to you any longer?"

"That's exactly it actually." Takeda said, flexing out the fingers on his right hand with his left sitting casually in his pocket as always, "I mean, what's the point here? What exactly is Ragnarok trying to do?"

"That's for the members that are actual Fists to worry about." Loki said, wagging a finger in his direction, "Lesser members like you don't have to worry about anything like that, so why don't you just go back to Valkyrie? Tell her we're almost finished doing her job for her."

"That's going to be a problem." Without saying anything else, Takeda nailed several more underlings with hard punches before they could try to even defend themselves, "Because I'm done with Ragnarok. With Kisara's gang. All of it. Let's just say I like these guys more than you. Though I do want to see how I stack up against one of the Fists of Ragnarok before I go."

"You want to get the deserter's penalty from me?" Loki asked with a bit of a laugh, "That's just fine with me, I didn't get enough of a workout. I should feel bad about beating down a one-armed man…" And again, Loki approached to attack, "…But I won't!"

Takeda stood with his right hand at the ready in his boxer's stance as he anticipated the attack, "Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

Loki just chuckled at the brashness despite the fact that Takeda had to know he was outgunned, "Oh, I guess I'm using too many words for the punch-drunk boxer. I'll try to keep it under seven syllables a sentence." As he got close enough, Takeda started jabbing rapidly with his right hand to keep him back, "This is just sad."

With not a single punch hitting Loki as he merely swayed his head out of the way, the Fourth Fist was thoroughly enjoying embarrassing Takeda by doing nothing more than moving his face aside. Sure, Takeda might have been special once, but with just one arm all he was to Ragnarok was cannon fodder for their eventual upcoming war with their real enemy.

A pawn of sorts.

And if he was tired of his lot in the gang, they wouldn't miss anything by being rid of him. How was a boxer with one viable arm not expendable?

"You know what's sad?" Takeda said as Loki continued to make dodging his right hand look easy, "My injured left arm."

"Agreed." Loki replied, finally thinking it was time he put an end to this, 'Pssht, all it'll take is one move.'

"Yeah, right now it's only twice as fast and as strong as my right." At the confused look on Loki's face, Takeda grinned wider than ever as he snapped his left hand out of his pocket and struck out with it like lightning much to Loki's surprise, "Gensou Hidari (Illusionary Left)!"

It didn't seem feasible as Loki watched what should have been Takeda's dead arm move through the air. Even if he'd been anticipating the move and had been able to dodge, the confusing twisting motion of the fist would have rendered his efforts moot. Either way he still would have been blasted in the fact with Takeda Ikki's left hand.

Knocked to the ground, Loki clutched at his nose and scooted backwards on his backside as blood streamed between his fingers, "My nose! I thought you were too injured to use that arm!"

"I guess the 'tactician' didn't know about that before starting a fight with me." Takeda said, now holding up both arms in the classic posture for a boxer's defense, "That's right, the 'Illusionary Left' is back!" He then gestured his eyes Kenichi's way to show that he was slowly getting back up, "Someone miscalculated… because Uzumaki Naruto and Shirahama Kenichi aren't alone."

Takeda had already knocked out all of his other thugs, probably using the guise of being a Ragnarok member himself to get close enough to floor them all. So now Loki was basically alone and the tables had turned.

"Damn it." Loki said, getting back up before quickly backing away, "You're both finished for this. This is on a whole other level. You don't know what you've just done to yourself Takeda. You're going to be crushed along with them now. It's still just a handful of you."

"Bye-bye now." Takeda said, waving at Loki with his left hand until he got out of sight. Once he did, Takeda's arm dropped limply to his side, twitching every so often, "Ugh, thank goodness… he over-thought my bluff."

Takeda could use his arm, but it wasn't healthy enough to be sustained in a real fight, especially against an enemy as powerful as one of the Fists of Ragnarok. If Loki had stayed to fight him, he would have easily won. He would have destroyed him in no time flat. But having his expectations disrupted three times straight in a matter of seconds rattled him enough to trigger a fight-or-flight reaction from him.

Takeda's left arm being useable, Kenichi having someone to help him aside from the ninja that he'd separated from him, and Kenichi getting back up from a wicked barrage of attacks. All of those things hit hard and fast on Loki's psyche. Most planners were very easy to shake up when the key points of their strategies were disrupted like that.

The thing about it was, Kenichi wasn't ready to keep fighting at all. The next breeze literally toppled him over straight onto his back and out cold.

"…Sometimes dumb luck is more important than skill or a plan." Takeda said to himself with a sigh of relief as he picked up Kenichi under his right arm and started out to find somewhere to take him. They weren't ready to face the Fists yet, for differing reasons, but nevertheless…

XxX

This was not the time for this. Though maybe this was what was meant to happen. A lot of this if not most of it had to have been orchestrated in advance. So much couldn't go wrong just for absolutely no reason.

"My girls can't find you even with Loki's tip, and now I see why." Freya said, picking her staff back up off of the floor as if preparing to fight, "You're a shrewd one, taking refuge in my grandfather's dojo. That would be the last place any of us would think to look. That and our hideout."

"Yeah…" Naruto said, averting his eyes away from her while blatantly lying about his own course of action, "That was the plan alright. You got me." Shikamaru already told him that the girl was one of the Fists of Ragnarok. Freya, her codename was. Apparently she was the third strongest.

"Your arm healed." Freya pointed out, holding her staff at the ready to fight him, "That's good. I wouldn't want to defeat an injured opponent, even if you are an enemy of Ragnarok. But I'll just break it again if you think for a moment that you can block a single strike from me."

"I don't block." Naruto said before quickly whipping out a handful of shuriken to throw her way, not really surprised that she deflected some of them and avoided the others. As she got closer she suddenly poked out the end of her staff in a series of rapid-fire thrusting attacks that Naruto repeatedly dodged back from. They were mere blurs.

"You shouldn't backpedal against a staff-user." Freya chided as she shifted her attack toward Naruto's legs to try and take them out with similarly swift jabs.

"Don't tell me how to fight." Naruto managed to grit out through his teeth while focusing just to keep from getting hit in the face, 'These are so fast!' He couldn't let one of those hit his legs, but as his attention was at the ground, he barely noticed Freya twist her arms after one particular strike to send the back end of her staff at his head.

Only supreme situational awareness kept that surprise attack from crowning Naruto on top of his head, instead he turned and let it roll off of his shoulder with only some pain sent his way. Arms awkwardly twisted from her semi-successful attack, Freya was forcefully side-kicked in the stomach to knock her away from him before she had to block a jump kick aimed at her head with her weapon.

"Very impressive." Freya commented on Naruto's method of weathering her attack, "I didn't think a 'ninja' would be able to prevent taking damage like that."

"I'm kind of used to getting hit." Naruto said, squinting in concentration as he tried to estimate just how far she could safely swing that staff at him without missing and overexposing herself, "Not with a staff, but I know how to take a punch if you know what I'm saying."

A statue probably would have had more expression on its face than on Freya's. A pretty girl like that shouldn't look so serious all of the time, "You've never fought a staff-adept have you?"

"One of the Valkyries had a spear."

"It's not the same thing." Freya stated, shooting down Naruto's theory of handling the two weapons being the same, "A staff is the most versatile weapon around. And my staff is an extension of my body."

"Yeah, well just like your body-." Naruto suddenly went into his bag and pulled out his manriki-gusari chain before slinging it out at Freya. She blocked it with her staff, but the weighted end wrapped around the middle, "If I get a hold of it what can you do then?"

Freya didn't indulge him with an answer and instead separated her staff into two segments much to his surprise to free her weapon of the chain before rushing right at him, "That." She took one swipe at his body had him bend his body forward out of the way and a second aimed at his head that forced him to scramble low underneath it and past her.

Freya reconnected the parts of the staff and turned as Naruto fired a mule kick at her, allowing her to defend against it much to his annoyance. With the bottom end of her staff she swept the hand he'd used to steady himself dropping him to the ground before she jumped in the air, holding the staff over her head and aiming for a battering downward swing to smash him into the floor, "First Technique! Kugatachi-Ryuu Gokui: Rei Mei (Kugatachi-Style Ultimate Technique: Thunder Clap)!"

Naruto put his feet together and pushed them out into the air when the staff started coming down. With a great smack, the staff hit the bottom of his shoes and contracted his legs, pushing his knees down to his chest. Thank goodness he did so many footwork drills and lower body exercises because he had to be precise to keep from getting blasted with the staff, but he didn't take an injury in the process.

That should have broken bones in his feet. But he stopped it with them, "That wasn't… very ultimate." Naruto said, straining greatly with his legs compressed.

"How did you block that?" Freya asked, trying to push down on Naruto's legs to keep him from trying to make any other moves, "That should have broken your legs."

"Good… footwear." Naruto said, and Freya noticed the row of metal-tipped treads going straight up the middle length of his shoes. He used those to help him run along elevated surfaces easier, but no one else had to know that. With a strong yell he pushed up with his legs and kicked her staff off of him before kipping up to his feet. Naruto flipped over Freya and tried to stomp-kick her from above, but she blocked him again.

The girl knew full well how to protect herself with that damn thing. She twisted the battle tool and tried to swing it through the air to pick him out of it, but few twists of his body allowed Naruto to land on his feet more or less scot-free.

Upon landing he threw a punch but she moved backwards while shoving the staff out, jabbing him in the belly. He tried for a kick, but a well-aimed shift of the staff stopped his leg cold before she twisted it and hit him in the side before aiming at his chin.

Naruto leaned his entire body back so far Freya thought it was impossible to bend back up. It was, and Naruto wound up bending so far back the top of his head touched the floor.

'What in the world?' As Freya contemplated just how he did that safely without splitting his skull open, Naruto's leg lashed up to kick her grip upward. Spinning around on his neck he jumped back up and grabbed hold of it as it was held up over her head.

Both of them had both hands on the staff and started grappling over the weapon, trying to wrest it from the other. Naruto dug his heels in first and took the edge, driving her back into the wall before making a snap decision to knee her open body once they made it there.

The air rushed out of her body but she didn't let go of her weapon that was being held above their heads. Neither ones' arms weren't free to use and they were so close their chests were pressed against each other. The two of them were so close they could see the different shade of blue in each other's eyes.

"What's with Ragnarok? I don't get it!" Naruto demanded to know while they were struggling with one another. It couldn't just be because they kept outfighting their members that they kept coming for them, "You're the second one I've fought. You're so good. Why are you in a gang, and what's the point?"

"Ragnarok isn't meant to be some common street gang." Freya returned, sick of being overpowered by some man. She used weapons so that such a thing never came into play in battle, and even with all of her training to try and circumvent such a thing he was making it look easy to hold her back. His body-type didn't even look like he was that strong, "The Fists are all a gathering of skilled martial artists."

"Could've fooled me with all of the stupid street bullying crap! Seems like a regular old gang to me!" Naruto replied, shoving his forehead against hers while baring his teeth. He wanted some kind of a damn explanation for all of this, "Fuck off already!"

That got an angry expression to appear on Freya's face before she pushed Naruto's forehead back with her own and subsequently tried a headbutt that Naruto moved his head to the side to avoid. That was enough disruption for her to shove her body off of the wall and trip up Naruto's legs so that he fell down onto his back. Still, with supreme balance, Naruto stuck a foot into her stomach and rolled back through to wind up with Freya on the ground.

Keeping most of Naruto's weight away with her legs, Freya struggled against him to keep him from pressing the staff to her neck, "Ragnarok represents the strongest up-and-coming martial artists in town. We were put together for a reason and we need underlings to help when the time comes. Also… if you think I'm so weak that this is over with, you're underestimating me!" Again she separated her staff into two parts.

This upset Naruto's forward stability and almost made him take a spill onto his face had he not forward-rolled through, winding up on one knee while Freya got up to one as well. Feeling around on the ground, Naruto picked his chain weapon back up and swung it at Freya's leg only for her to put her reattached staff in the way to have it wrap around its bottom end.

Swiveling her body around it she pushed herself off of the ground and actually caught Naruto across the face with a sudden kick. That damn staff made her reach so long! A spin-through once her feet touched the ground wound up with the side of Naruto's torso taking a heavy blow that had him stumble off to the side for a few steps.

With a bruise forming on his cheek, Naruto held his chain in two hands and glared over at her, "Try that again. Try anything again. I dare you."

"There isn't a single range you can challenge me at." Freya said holding her staff in a technical position, prepared for absolutely anything that he would try from that point forward, "Being tough and agile only gets you so far if it's too dangerous for you to get close enough to attack me. You had your chance and you didn't have anything to finish me with. With a weapon in my hand I'm stronger than any man with or without one."

In response, the stone-faced Naruto didn't say anything. He merely revealed a small tan orb that seemed to be handmade between his index and middle fingers and his face suddenly changed to a grin before he threw it to the ground and the room found itself engulfed in smoke.

'Tricky bastard!' Freya thought to herself as she started twirling her staff in her hands nonstop, fast enough to stop anything that came its way. She couldn't see anything through the smoke and if he was a real ninja he could do anything from anywhere, and she'd never know, 'If grandfather were using this technique this smoke would be gone.'

Even if she didn't know where he was, if she kept moving around they would be on a level playing field since he couldn't see either. She heard the jangle of a chain and something heavy dropping to the floor, thus she swung her staff in that direction only to hit nothing.

"Second Technique! Kugatachi-Ryuu Gokui: O Ken (Kugatachi-Style Ultimate Technique: No Sight)!"

Freya had to cover her face and brace herself as all of the smoke in the room wound up being blown away with extreme force, as if a wind storm had kicked through, "Grandfather!"

"That's enough." The old man from before was right behind Freya, holding onto the same staff from before, now with his attitude as serious as he had been momentarily with Naruto and Honoka before. Honoka was right there with him, looking quite frightened.

The reason being that his staff was pointed directly up in the air with Naruto stuck up on the end as if he had been in the middle of an attack. One of his fists were cocked back to strike with a portion of his chain wrapped around both of them. Freya looked where she'd swung her staff and hit nothing to find that Naruto had detached one of the weights on the chain to grab her attention.

Had he been on the ceiling waiting that entire time? She would have never seen whatever move he was about to try coming, and that the sound of that weight to attract her attention was meant to lure her into a spot where he knew she'd be.

"What the-?" Naruto said, wondering what kind of awesome skill with that staff the old man had to hold him up, perfectly balanced so that even fussing around couldn't get him off of it. It was sort of embarrassing, especially since moments before he was going to do something cool to beat Freya. She definitely wouldn't have gotten back up from it, "Hey, what gives? I was about to hit one of my finishers! She used one of hers!"

"Grandfather we were fighting!" Freya said, knowing that this was her grandfather's way of putting a stop to it all, "Why did you interfere?" Supposedly masters couldn't interfere in the battles of their disciples. Some code or something like that.

"Kaname, this boy came here asking for assistance. Not to fight."

Freya looked up at Naruto with a raised eyebrow on her pretty face, "You came asking for help from Ragnarok?"

"No." Naruto said, just accepting his fate being stuck up in the air on the end of a stick for the time being, "I came here asking this guy if I could keep Honoka here for a little bit while I went to help Kenichi out of a jam. I was probably going to go kick some Ragnarok ass." Freya's grandfather elevated his staff enough to bump Naruto up against the ceiling in return, "Ow!"

"All the more reason that you should let him down so that we can finish this." Freya said, holding her staff at the ready for just that moment, "He's an enemy to my group. Young skilled fighters can't exist outside of Ragnarok in this town. It's too dangerous. When the battle with YOMI begins they'll either try to use him against us or they'll kill him!"

"And you aren't trying to kill me now?" What the hell was a YOMI anyway? Another gang? That was just great.

"No! The way of the staff is not to kill our opponents."

"Two of your Valkyries carry sharp-ass weapons! *THUMP* Ow! Stop bumping me off of the ceiling!"

"Stop cursing around a child." Freya's grandfather said, gesturing his head at Honoka, "I strictly teach Katsujinken. My granddaughter is no killer, nor does she teach killers. I am quite certain that no matter what choices in she's made in the company of martial artist she keeps that mindset."

Freya shook her head as she looked back up at Naruto, "You have it wrong. Grandfather is correct. Most of the Fists of Ragnarok are rough and callous, but the martial artists that make up YOMI, they'll be Satsujinken through and through. They'll be the ones that will actually kill their opponents after they win."

"You're really his granddaughter?" That weird little old man was really super-hot Freya's relative? What was it with good looking girls being related to weird older guys? It was an epidemic, "Well killing or not, I'm so tired of this cra-… stuff. I can't take a Sunday off and spend a bit of time with friends without this happening. Look at Honoka, she scared."

Freya looked over at the little girl that was in the room with them. She didn't look like Naruto so it wasn't his little relative, "Who is that girl?" Apparently Naruto had hidden behind a child to escape from the Valkyries once according to what her girls told her, but this wasn't that kind of man, "She's cute."

"Kenichi's little sister." Naruto said as the old man let him down back onto his own feet. Still minding his surroundings, Naruto moved carefully over to where he'd disengaged the weight on one of the ends of his chain so that he could retrieve it, "You jerks attacked him in front of her. It doesn't matter if you kill people or not, Ragnarok's just a pack of bullies from all I've seen. I don't know about the Valkyries too since all they did was come after me."

"You're a ninja. They weren't going to give you a chance to prepare yourself." Freya questioned as Naruto reattached part of his manriki-gusari and stuck it back in his bag, "That wouldn't make any sense. Ninjas are supposed to be win-at-all-costs types."

"I don't care about them coming after me, but when she showed up that should have been that." Naruto said, gesturing for Honoka to come over to him so that they could leave, "I don't care about this YOMI group and what they might wind up doing later, because you're the ones screwing with us right now. Come on Tidbit, let's go get your brother."

Honoka walked from behind the old man and grabbed Naruto's hand, prompting him to set out toward the exit to be on their way.

"Wait." Freya called out before Naruto could leave the dojo altogether, "This isn't over. I'm letting you leave because the girl is here, but that won't save you the next time."

"Name."

"What?"

"If you're gonna challenge me later I want your name." Naruto said, holding up a fist in her direction, "Mine is Uzumaki Naruto, but you already knew that. So what's yours?" She opened her mouth to answer, but he shook his head, "Not your nickname."

Freya gave him a long, hard look before answering. This wasn't what she'd come to expect from Odin when told of what he knew about the ninja-type, "…Kaname. Kugatachi Kaname." He'd already heard her given name, but this was something of a formal challenge for the near future, "Now go. When I fight you next time you won't get an advantage like that again."

All of the acrobatics in the world wouldn't help him.

Naruto nodded and left with Honoka, stopping just outside to let her climb over onto his back again for easier movement, "When I fight you again I'll just find another one… Kaname." With that, he dashed off again to look for his friend.

Once he was gone, Freya turned her gaze back to her grandfather that had seemingly gone back to his usual placid, unaware demeanor from before. When he wasn't training her or in the middle of battle he was sort of out of it 24/7.

It was hard to tell what he thought about her involvement in Ragnarok or how much he even knew about it. And even now she wasn't sure, because he never really seemed at all there when he was present unless he was set to teach her something.

She still didn't know why he called her off of Naruto, or Naruto off of her considering the situation they had been in, but she would listen to him for now. He was her master and her grandfather. He'd trained her since she was a young girl, and if he had any objection to her actions she'd heed them.

But in the meantime, fighting as one of Ragnarok was the best way to take on strong opponents and the only way to constantly prove to herself that she was growing in skill as a martial artist. This had done nothing to prove that notion wrong.

Uzumaki Naruto. A strange-looking young man that fought even stranger.

"A ninja with a code of ethics…" She said to herself with a shake of the head, touching at a bruise on her forehead from the scuffle, "How bizarre."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Unfortunately, Miu was quite bored since there was no school and Kenichi had scheduled his day off well in advance so that he could spend some time with his adorable little sister. It was certainly big of him, and rather endearing from her point of view that he cared about her like that.

"I wish I had a brother or a sister or something." Miu said to herself, just thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a younger sibling to share in the insanity of Ryouzanpaku with her, "I can only imagine." She could only daydream as she swept the floor outside of the dojo dutifully.

At that point the front gate of the property took three hard thuds before it found itself opened enough for people to come through, much to her surprise. None of the masters had been out. Kensei and Akisame didn't even have to work on that day which was why they usually used it as their days to work Kenichi into the ground.

And speaking of Kenichi, he was being assisted onto the premises by Naruto and Takeda, with Honoka following along with them worriedly. He looked rather beaten and battered and without pause Miu ran over to them as they kept moving him to the extra lodging building where the other masters stayed, "What happened?"

"Ragnarok doesn't take days off, that's what." Naruto said as they got him inside and set him down on the first comfortable area they could before Naruto sat down nearby and proverbially licked his own minor wounds, "We split up and they jumped all over us. Thanks Takeda."

"Don't worry about it." Takeda said in return, rubbing his newly healed left arm that was still very vulnerable. Even throwing his best punch with it one time was enough to leave it without strength, "I never liked that guy. But we got lucky. If everything hadn't thrown him off so badly that he thought it'd be easier to fall back, I'd be in Kenichi's shoes too right now."

Honoka and Miu were around a bedroll that they had placed Kenichi in to rest so that they could clean up his face, "Onii-chan…" It was damn near heartbreaking to hear her fret over her older brother's condition, especially for Miu. Granted he would be fine with a bit of rest, but that didn't make any difference to her.

He'd still been beaten up rather badly.

"Those Fists aren't a joke." Naruto remarked to the others, but mostly to himself, "If they get much stronger than Kana-…. Freya… I'm not sure what it'll take to get over on 'em." He wasn't sure that he'd wind up able to manufacture a course of action against Freya herself if they had to fight again.

He could do it! He wasn't ever going to admit that he had a chance of losing to anyone under any circumstances. That was loser-talk, and Uzumaki Naruto was never going to acknowledge losing. He got enough of it otherwise without having it pervade his thoughts. They just had to train harder, and he had to pick up more new tricks than his opponents that they hadn't seen before by the time they met again.

Easy… right?

Yeah, definitely easy. The element of surprise was supposed to be his specialty.

Takeda gave Naruto a pat on the shoulder as the girls worried over Kenichi, "Well I guess we're going to all find out what it'll take because they'll be coming for us now. It won't just be Kisara's gang anymore. Kenichi and I pissed off Loki, and you pissed off Freya and her Valkyries. We might as well have set off every last one of the Eight Fists."

"I didn't piss off-." Naruto started to say before thinking of the entire chain of events that had occurred that day, "Huh. Yeah, I probably pissed them all off. But did you really make this Loki guy that mad?"

Between deserting Ragnarok and busting the entire basis of what would become his stratagem to take them down, "…Yes. I can safely say we really upset him."

"Upset who now?" Ma Kensei's undersized form entered the room and noticed the damage done to Kenichi that Miu was busy trying to clean up. Any possible good-natured perversion that he normally would have had in the face of seeing Miu crouched right by something disappeared at the sight of such a beaten student being the 'something', "What was the cause of this?"

Miu answered without looking up from wiping Kenichi's face with a wet rag, "Kenichi was attacked while he was out with his sister. That's terrible!"

"Wish I had a girl that cared that much about my injuries like 'Honey' over there." Takeda pointed out with a bit of a mutter as he stared at Miu helping Kensei look over Kenichi's wounds, getting a nod of agreement from Naruto, "Speaking of which, Freya-."

"-Is so hot." Naruto finished for him, knowing where he was going, "It's not fair." He held up three fingers and ticked them down while squinting his eyes, "I wind up meeting three pretty girls where the whole ninja thing probably wouldn't be a problem, and all of them want to beat me up."

"Cheer up. It's just a matter of time until you find a special someone for you."

"I'm not listening to you say that. You're basically a damn male model that can punch."

"Well when you've got it you've got it."

With a sigh of relief, Kensei said something to Miu that got her face to light up and actually seemed to settle down Honoka somewhat before he walked over to Takeda and Naruto who had been sitting on the floor against the wall, "Were you both there?" Both young men nodded and Naruto expected to get lambasted for not being there to get him out of trouble, "Thank you for bringing him back."

What? But he got beaten like a punching bag by Loki. Basically Takeda just dragged him back and Naruto found them to help do that, "Uh, but he's all… you know."

"He's still alive isn't he?" Kensei said, gesturing toward Kenichi, "And he'll be waking up any second now. Things like this will happen to any martial artist. As long as he can get up and learn from his defeat he will be better for it." They were going to make sure that his training was that much harsher to make up for it, but hey, "What about you?"

Naruto looked over his minor wounds, especially the long, rather deep lash he'd suffered on his shoulder and chest from a whip at the outset of the little episode and brushed it all off. Takeda flexed out his left arm showing that it still worked, "Nothing."

"You look like you've had some trouble yourself."

"I'm fine. Just some scratches."

There was a bit of an irritated fire in Naruto's eyes, but he didn't say anything else about it. Kensei let out a hum before tucking his hands into the opposite sleeves of his long-armed shirt, "You should go see Shigure since you're here. Right down the hall." The blond boy just gave him a deadpan stare for a few moments, "Go on now. There's nothing else you can really do here."

Takeda would have sworn that Naruto had exhaled steam through his nose like a bull as he got up to go find the room in question. He figured he'd stick around for a while if nothing else so that neither of them had to start for home on their own at a time like this.

Aside from that, it would give him more time to check out Miu. Seriously, without the glasses and the braid she looked remarkable. Why would she hide that in school? And was she actually Kenichi's girlfriend, because if so bravo.

Suddenly Kenichi's eyes opened and he began stirring with a groan. The last thing he remembered was getting beaten down by some guy that had doppelgangers of himself. Badly. He'd been beaten rather decisively.

He wasn't outdoors, he knew that much. And then he saw a ceiling, and then the face of a worried little sister hovering over him, "…Honoka?" Before feeling the same little sister press down on his rather painful body, "Gah!"

"Onii-chan you're alright!" Honoka was apparently unaware of how sore Kenichi happened to be since she couldn't see his face twist up in anguish, "I went to go get Lemonhead, but we couldn't come back quickly, and then we saw you with Takeda-san and you were so beaten up and-!"

"Honoka… ribs." Kenichi said, gently coaxing her off of him before trying to sit up, "What now?"

Miu set a hand on his shoulder, heating his face up at how close she was to him, and also due to her very easing smile, "You fought one of Ragnarok's Fists, Loki. He did this to you. Takeda-san helped you out and he and Naruto-kun brought you here."

Now it was all as clear as a bell in his mind. Even when that guy hadn't been fighting like a prick he was still strong enough to defeat him without much effort. That style of fighting he used was just incredible. A kind of Karate that flowed each movement into a multitude of attacks. One punch could lead to seven hits.

That Loki person had absolutely wrecked him. He didn't even need the tricks and the pack of underlings to do it. For the most part, the rest of them had been entirely useless aside from wearing him out. But even if that hadn't been the case, he couldn't say that he wouldn't have lost, because there was no argument to say he could have won.

"Thank you Takeda-san." Kenichi said, getting a gesture of good faith from the formerly handicapped boxer, "I can't believe how strong that guy was. I thought I was getting somewhere, but then he just-." He couldn't even finish his thought.

And Honoka had been in danger too. If he'd had the thought to do something to her to get to him in a better way what could he have really done to stop him?

No, this wasn't enough. He was stronger than he'd been back when he was the first-year punching bag for Karate Club, but now was bigger than that. If Ragnarok really wanted to put him down badly enough to attack him while he was with his little sister, that just wasn't going to sit well with him.

What kind of justice could he fight for when things like that could happen to him at the drop of a hat?

"So what are you going to do now?" Kensei said, watching the play of thoughts and emotions roll across Kenichi's face, "You've felt your own growth as a martial artist, seen what fruits your labor can give you. But you've also realized that it's not enough. You've gotten yourself into a neverending stream of battles and what you have isn't enough."

"Then I'll do more." Kenichi said, clenching his fists in his lap, "What happened today, with Honoka there… no." That couldn't happen again. Nothing like that could happen again.

What he brought up some time before about possibly moving into the dojo to train… he wondered if Miu had just been talking, or if that was really something that he could do.

XxX

(With Naruto)

'What am I doing here?' Naruto thought to himself as his feet took him into the hallways that Kensei had directed him toward, 'I dropped Kenichi off, he's alright, I don't have to go back here.' Part of him wanted to go back there though.

As much trepidation as he held for Ryouzanpaku and everything about it, there was just something about that place and the people there that he couldn't ignore or keep himself away from, even when he tried his best to do so.

Was it the fact that he'd made friends that had deep ties with that place? Miu and Kenichi? Perhaps. But that wasn't entirely true.

Maybe it was something more.

Either way, it was easy for him to find the room because every door he walked in front of had a different feeling to it, as if a powerful presence was inside. And each of those presences were particular.

One door, nothing. At another door, Naruto felt extremely aggravated but also had a survival instinct to not fuck with whoever was in there, not to even knock on the door. That was obviously Sakaki Shio's room. In front of another door he felt very dull and mellow for absolutely no reason. Probably Koetsuji Akisame's room.

The last room he reached he simply knocked at the door without waiting since by process of elimination that one had to be what he'd been looking for, "Ahem… Shigure? Hello?" The feeling he got at this room was that he would get cut just from sliding it open. It was definitely hers, "Are you in there?"

"Yes. Come in."

With a sigh to himself, Naruto tried to psyche himself up, 'Come on, the man that'll be the best ninja in the world isn't afraid of something like this!' Besides, it wasn't like she was going to cut him or something.

Opening the door, Naruto saw a room with pretty high walls but not much inside of it to furnish it.

Other than the countless weapons that covered the walls from top to bottom.

Most of them were swords, but there were still a ton of them all over. Wow. This had to be it. It had to be what he'd been looking for all that time. One of those had to be what he'd been trying to get from them for all of that time. But which one? Or were any of them? If the weapons he was after were so valuable, who'd keep them in the open?

"You finally came here." The pink kimono-clad Shigure said, giving Naruto a moment to take in all of the weaponry in her possession before addressing him. She'd allowed him well over two minutes to drink it all in, and had sat down in the middle of her floor to wait for him to snap out of it, "I've been… waiting."

Naruto wasn't sure or not, but she sounded a tad irritated. Then again it had been quite some time since she'd requested his presence. But he thought she'd implied that more than one master wanted to speak with him, not just her.

Still, he plopped himself down on the floor right in front of her and had an impromptu staring contest while her mouse sat on her head and seemed to be the most mellow out of the two of them.

"What happened to you?" The calm-eyed weapon mistress asked upon getting a good look at Naruto's disheveled form along with the bumps and bruises, "Did… you fight?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Naruto said, waving her off, "Just some girl with a staff that really knew how to use it. That's all. I'll find a way to beat her easier next time, dattebayo." He said, slightly riled up at the thought before he could catch himself and refrain from adding on the verbal tic. Hopefully she didn't notice it, "Kenichi lost bad to someone else."

"He did?"

"He'll be fine though. Just a little beaten up."

"How do you think you'll train for a staff-user?"

"…I dunno. Somehow. It's not like I know someone else that can use one and would help me."

Without saying another word, Shigure got up and went over to one of her walls before jumping into the air and coming back down with a… staff. So she could kick his ass with one of those too. Good to know, "Was it this long?"

"No, it was shorter." Naruto said, holding his arms out to the rough size of what he figured Freya's short staff to be, "What's going on? Why do you care?" Nobody cared. That was what he was used to. He did whatever he wanted, and whatever he thought was right. He hadn't had supervision in four years, and before that the only supervision he had was when he was being taught in his group.

Shigure set the staff to the side and sat down on the floor again close to Naruto before deciding that Miu was right. Naruto was dense and if it wasn't threatening his life he needed things to be direct to get the edge of it, "I want to train you."

And Naruto's brain lost all air pressure as he tilted over to the side. Only a quick reboot kept him from taking a spill and allowed him to catch himself with his hands, "Wh-What? Train… me? What about Kenichi? Aren't you supposed to be his sensei?"

"I am." She replied with a nod as she kept speaking slowly and deliberately, "But he does not like the idea… of using weapons. I can only teach him so much."

It honestly made her feel a little put out. Even salty old Sakaki had gotten a strong sense of satisfaction from training their sole disciple and contributing to his growth. She got one good day to teach him how to deal with opponents that used weapons, and other than that not much else.

"So you wanna teach me?"

"You are very raw. Unrefined. You've taught yourself most of everything that you know, and it shows, even in your stance that I saw the last time we met." Shigure said in regards to what Naruto could do, "You do you what feel is comfortable, but not what is appropriate… because you were not shown how to make it yours and could not make the proper motions work for you."

Naruto's eyes widened but he kept his mouth shut. He'd learned everything about his weapons, from advanced aim with the shuriken to the manriki-gusari, from recreating instructions from his parents' notes. Things that he couldn't understand enough to reenact on his own he skipped altogether.

"It's like putting a triangle into a square slot." Shigure continued to say, "It fits, but not how it's… supposed to. I can help."

A visible recoil was expressed on Naruto's face, "You want to help _me_?"

The Shikamaru in his brain was telling him that there was something up, but that was where it ended because he couldn't think of a reason that training him would benefit her in the least, let alone the rest of Ryouzanpaku.

The first thing that came to mind was to decline, and decline loudly. The last thing he wanted from anyone was their pity, which was what he figured this all would have been for. Repayment over a guilty conscience for destroying him again and again for four years.

"_There is a thin line between confidence and arrogance. See that you take care to mind that line."_

That shut his mouth before he even tried to open it. He didn't want to turn her down, and he knew that from the start. The words of Freya's grandfather from earlier that day when he wasn't wailing on him with a stick rang out in his head. Perhaps he literally had beaten his words into his head.

'I've said a billion times that I'm gonna rob this place, and this is still happening?' He was looking right at the swords… maybe. He wasn't sure. He never really knew what the best weapons in the world were supposed to look or be like, but now he knew that they were really there. But the person he had to steal from to achieve his goal was asking him if he wanted to be trained by her.

And he wanted to say yes, but in the back of his mind…

"_There are people around that you can trust."_

Oh, what the hell. Why not? What did he really have to lose from saying yes? Stealing could wait until their liaison with Konohagakure met with them. At least now he knew without a doubt where he needed to check and look. In the meantime, there was personal business that needed to be handled.

So he'd never really gotten help from anyone in years. Someone was offering it now. Just because you spent hours at sea desperately fighting against the waves with both arms and legs to keep from drowning didn't mean that when someone finally gave out their hand for you to take you turned it down.

This seemingly emotionless young lady saw something in him that she wanted to cultivate, or at least try to, and she was sitting there waiting on him to answer, either for or against.

"If you're really willing to help me out…" Naruto said before an eager grin slowly sprang to his face, "…Then I'll definitely take it! How could I turn something like that down? You've got it!" Naruto extended his hand for a shake, but Shigure didn't take it in turn. Why didn't anyone ever shake his hand? "Nevermind then."

Was Shigure really that good of a teacher that she thought she could help him to that extent though? He was extremely eager to find out for better or for worse.

"Tomorrow." She said as slowly and as calmly as ever, "I want to start with you tomorrow." Behind the façade that really wasn't in her expression, she was actually excited at possibly getting to show someone the nuances of certain aspects of weapon use, especially someone that already knew a little something about them.

…Hopefully Naruto could survive it.

Meh, he'd be fine.

* * *

**Rah, nothing much to say. First week of the last college semester in and I'm not sure what to take from my classes yet. I'm still fearing the worst later down the line, but for now we're going to stay optimistic with it baby.**

**There'll be time to be pessimistic after I graduate and the world at large puts out a cigarette in my face.**

**Alright, later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	7. Weapon of Choice

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Want to have some fun? Spar with a 300 pound guy that can bench 400 pounds and see if he doesn't crack one of your ribs with a body shot.

No hospital though. Hospitals are for the dead and dying… and people with insurance. Just give me some tape.

**Chapter 7: Weapon of Choice**

* * *

Even in the middle of the warehouse hideout of Ragnarok, in the middle of her training, Freya could not get her short tiff against Uzumaki Naruto off of her mind. With every curl of the dumbbell she did, it kept drifting back.

Mostly to the part where he had her pressed against the wall… and on the floor. And the fiery look in his eyes when he had been doing it.

She hadn't been dominated like that since the moment she first picked up a staff as a younger girl. Not by any man prior. So instead of being enraged, why did she feel… the way she felt? She wasn't going to even try and verbalize it beyond acknowledging that it was there. There was no reason to pretend that it wasn't. It wasn't as if she had to go and talk about it to someone, so admitting such a thing to herself was no problem.

Even so, he was just some oddball boy. A boy two years younger than her at that, and one that she was supposed to be finding some method to corner and defeat. He wasn't even _that_ good looking to justify sticking around in her head for that long. No way. So she had to get him out of there already.

Elsewhere in the training room reserved for the Eight Fists, a towering and rotund young man leaned against a very large heavy bag near another smaller young man that had a quite interesting look about him.

The first large young man had short black hair with long sideburns. He was extremely muscular despite his round belly and wore a sleeveless grey kimono without any footwear. On his hands he had a pair of black gloves with the numeral VII on them.

His friend had long grey hair and wore a long red coat and hat with a feather in it, as well as dark pants and boots and black gloves with a 'V' on them. He was seemingly humming to himself as he and his friend watched Freya train absentmindedly.

"So Sieg…" The larger-bodied Ragnarok Fist said as they both continued to watch their most powerful female member train in deep thought, "What's up with Freya? She's been like that all day today ever since she got in."

"So deep in thought." Siegfried said, nodding in contemplation, "It is a welcome break from the usual Freya however, don't you think Thor?"

The massive Thor just gave him a strange look, "You mean aside from the usual Freya that doesn't talk that much to anyone else anyway?" No one in Ragnarok was particularly cordial with each other. Other than him and Siegfried, no one else really chose to communicate outside of necessity at Odin's orders. Kisara and Freya were close, but since Kisara was an estranged former member of Freya's Valkyries, even that relationship was a little rocky.

It seemed like every one of the Fists in Ragnarok happened to be slapped together to serve a particular purpose instead of a grouping of powerful fighters after the same thing.

"You don't see it?" Siegfried asked, putting a hand to his heart and the other out to the distance, "Normally she seems to be just waiting. Waiting the way that I myself wait on the melody for my next great composition! But now, she seems to be seeking something out! And I too will take her example as something to follow! I too will seek out the battle that will sing to my soul~!"

Thor really liked Siegfried. He was a great guy all things considered from Thor's point of view. That being said, he was a bit of a loon, and was a _tad_ obsessed with his music.

It was sometimes quite amusing to see him get worked up. At least he wasn't doing damn pirouettes-, oh and there he went. Look at him spin. The man had talent damn it, "Heh, I like your attitude Sieg!" Thor said, laughing heartily at his friend's exuberance.

As this went on, Freya actually started paying attention to what was going on outside of her training to see Thor laughing and Siegfried humming to himself while spinning. That was all she needed to see in order to justify outright leaving the room altogether.

This group was really filled with weird fighters.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Naruto's first day of training, he couldn't wait for it. In the morning he cranked out his daily exercises double-time and stayed awake and attentive through school all day long.

He actually outran Miu and Kenichi home and completely ignored the usual ambush lying in wait for them from low-on-the-totem-pole Ragnarok street toughs, just so he could get to the dojo faster and begin.

And right on cue he found the ever-lovely and mysterious Shigure waiting on him inside of the dojo building. If he'd have been a puppy his tail probably would have been wagging. He couldn't wait for his first exercise to be given to him.

"Okay…" Naruto said, standing ramrod-straight while staring ahead in a stunned manner, "People have told me to go play in traffic before… but I really never expected anyone to make me literally play in traffic."

The first exercise according to Shigure was to go to a busy portion of the highway and dodge vehicles in the street.

Of course, as a good teacher she had an explanation as to why she was going to make him do something so insane, "You aren't a beginner so we're starting strong." She said, sitting on a concrete barrier overlooking the lowered highway road that she was about to dispatch Naruto down into, "I want to see… where your reaction and endurance lays. Dodge for as long as you can."

"…Okay."

"…"

"…"

Well, if that was all the explanation he was going to get that was good enough for him.

Before he could climb up over the barrier though he was stopped by Shigure's arm on his shoulder, "Wait." She said slowly, keeping him from jumping down into the mosh pit of a motorway, "You're not going to try to run away, or call me a crazy sadist, or even… ask why I'm making you do this?"

"Uh." Naruto said, speaking guardedly as if to test out if he had done something wrong already. Okay, he'd bite though, "Why are you making me do this?" He asked as if the answer really didn't matter to him one way or the other.

Shigure was wont to explain her reasoning for making him work, "Because when you avoid the swing of a sword or of any weapon in general you must do so with the belief and understanding that your life is on the line with every move you make. I want you used to that."

She'd become accustomed to the questionnaire from Kenichi whenever he had to do a new over-the-top training exercise, so to not get it from someone new was odd. If she hadn't been forced to explain herself she would have felt off, as if not doing so would have been a jinx on her tenure as a primary sensei to her first real student.

Naruto blinked owlishly before squinting his eyes at her, 'Well, I wasn't gonna back down anyway, so she didn't have to say all of that.' He thought quite bluntly, "If you're telling me to do it first it can't be _that_ dangerous can it? So I'll just get to it, alright?"

Shigure didn't answer, and Naruto just stared at her for several seconds without saying a word. He seemed to do that a lot when it came to dealing with her. He just didn't know how to talk to the woman to get more than certain answers out of her. 'Banter' simply was not a word in the dictionary of Kousaka Shigure.

Alright then, in that case tallyho.

And with that, he went over the concrete barrier and dropped down amid a symphony of car horns and screeching tires.

Shigure held up a chain over her head that she began to spin as she watched Naruto frantically dodge two-ton metal death machines that were not stopping for him, "Maybe we should have started… on an easier road?"

XxX

(One Hour Later – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Sitting back in the dojo building with his arms crossed, smelling like exhaust fumes with oil stains on his training clothes and body, Naruto seemed quite perturbed as he muttered to himself, "…Need a shower."

He would have gotten hit over fourteen times for the duration of that exercise, but whenever it seemed like he would Shigure always skillfully reeled him back in with a hook she'd gotten onto him without his initial notice.

"Yes you do." Shigure said, standing up in front of Naruto with a hand on her hip, "…Later. Now I want you… to empty your bag."

Naruto slowly took his ever-present backpack off and unzipped all of the pockets before turning it upside-down and giving it a shake. The first things that fell out were three cases of ten shuriken, a small spool of wire, a grappling hook, two small sacks of smoke bombs, a few metsubushi shells, and then his schoolbooks.

Shigure didn't say anything at first, but just continued to stare at him, "Is that all?" On her shoulder her mouse Tochumaru just waved his front paw as if to indicate to keep going.

Another more stern shake of his bag, and out fell Naruto's manriki-gusari (weighted chain), a small pouch of kunai and makibishi spikes, a change of special shoes, a change of clothes, a kusarigama (scythe and chain), five old bentos, and a ragged old book that seemed to be written in code.

Naruto quickly snatched the last thing up and shoved it back into his bag, grinning brightly as if to say that she'd never seen that last thing. It must have been personal to him.

Did he always carry at least that much stuff? The bag didn't even seem like it could fit a quarter of all of that in there. Either way she grabbed at the bag and shook it to feel that it was perfectly empty before giving it back to him, "You can't use anymore weapons… until I say so."

"What!?" Naruto asked, jumping to his feet in a hurry, "But you're teaching me how to use weapons better? How am I supposed to do that if I can't, you know, use my weapons?"

That seemed rather counterproductive.

"To use weapons you must first understand weapons. To do properly that you must first be forced to go without them." Shigure held up one hand with five fingers out for him to see, "Five rules. Tell me what they are and for each one that you get I'll give you a weapon back and start training you with it." And she was not going to tell him what those rules were, "Learn a respect for them first."

Naruto didn't say anything or pout about it. Sure, she got those, but he still had all of the ones at his house. She couldn't keep him from carrying weapons on his person. Apparently he couldn't keep a secret due to how emotive his eyes were without even trying, because she picked up on it quickly.

"I'll follow you… from your house in the mornings to make sure you aren't using any of your own supply." She had no problems with him carrying them. If he did that would just make the temptation to use them stronger, and that would test his will of character. Perfect. But if he actually used any… he'd regret it when he showed up to train later, "You can use the smoke bombs if you need to. Nothing else."

"Even the shuriken?"

"Especially the shuriken. None of your own equipment."

Sure, he was pouting, but the truth of the matter was that he had a perfectly good pair of fists and feet if it was really going to be like that. Nevertheless, this whole thing seemed extremely condescending. He had a feeling that she wasn't talking about safety rules either, so he didn't know where to start. "Fine. You don't have to follow me. I'm not going to cheat."

In the meantime though…

"For now we train." Shigure said, retrieving a nearby flexible bamboo rod her size, "…Now dodge and defend."

"Again?" Naruto asked before she pegged him on the corner of his forehead with the end of it. Okay, so that wasn't going to be the same as the first thing they did. He couldn't tell if that was good or bad, "Ow! Alright, dodging!"

XxX

(The Next Day – City Streets)

With a hiss, Naruto touched at his nearly fully faded pebble-marks on his face, courtesy of Shigure, "I feel naked." He complained aloud. A tendency with him was to wait until he was away from there to complain since doing it while he was there wouldn't serve him any purpose.

No weapons. No weapons he could actually use to fight and deal blows with at least.

But that didn't matter. Ragnarok had to go down, and soon.

"You let the people you're trying to steal from keep you from using weapons, and you're basically on the honor system?" Shikamaru asked as he walked with his 'partner'. It was times like this where he was reminded why he quit. No support in four years but each other, and that wasn't much, "Did you ever think that this was just one big, long setup?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. If they wanted to keep me from making a move on them there's better ways to do that than just to get Shigure to tell me not to use anything."

"Did you… did you actually think that through?"

Shikamaru being impressed with Naruto didn't last that long as Naruto's façade just didn't stand up against further scrutiny, "…No. I said that here because you put me on the spot." He'd also had an entire day to think about it.

"But you know where the weapons we're after are? I can actually make a plan now?"

"Yes and no. I've still got to explain."

"You're so damn troublesome."

The two just continued on down the street until they felt someone following them. All of a sudden the two came to a stop and turned around to confront the person that had been following them, "…Valkyries again?" Naruto asked, rolling his eyes as he got down into a stance to fight. Weapons would have made it easier, but he could still kick butt.

"More like one." Shikamaru said, observing the girl curiously, but not moving to engage her. She seemed quite angry, but didn't seem to be willing to fight either. She was dressed in a white and pink Valkyrie outfit with brown eyes and brown hair done up into two buns, "…Do I know you?"

And not for the obvious reason of her being a Valkyrie. There was something else to it.

"I couldn't believe it." The girl as she walked up to them with her hands on her hips, "…I really couldn't. I thought I was the only one that was around here to find." She let out a humorless laugh and shook her head, still keeping a stern look on her face, "What the hell took you two so long to make contact? I figured I'd never get my support."

Say what now?

No way.

Shikamaru's heart almost stopped, and Naruto's eyes had never seemed so damn bright, 'This is-. She's-. We're-. No.' His eyes were still filled with mistrust, but there was only one thing they were trained to do to make sure upon meeting one of them that another was who they thought they were, "When does a ninja strike?" He gritted out.

There were only two answers to that question that were acceptable.

The girl almost robotically straightened up before reciting the answer, "We thrive in the chaos of the enemy tide. Ninja do not need dens to hide. All we need to do is watch and wait. Until the enemy lowers the gate."

Motherfucker.

"It's real." Naruto said, almost in disbelief. Giddy disbelief. It was enough to bring a damn tear to his eye, "I've… we've… four years. Four years!" He could have hugged the girl if he didn't feel like trying to save some face. Oh to hell with that, hug away.

Or it would have been if Shikamaru hadn't stopped him and the girl hadn't held her arms out to keep him at bay, "Not here." The girl said with a shake of her head, "I'm a Valkyrie. I can't really be seen with you in public. You're supposed to be Ragnarok's enemy."

It was off-putting, but understandable, for now at least.

They couldn't have made it to Naruto's home quickly enough for his tastes to make for a safe place to converse. It felt like he was flying. Things were going to get better. They'd finally come across their contact. After all of that time.

Shikamaru's head was spinning. He'd convinced himself that they'd left them alone. No support. No prayer of actually getting themselves into Ryouzanpaku. No chance of him ever getting to go to his family again who were on the other side of the world. He was an abandoned, cast out ninja. They couldn't associate with him without calling down the wrath for assisting a nuke-nin.

Had he really been wrong all of that time? It couldn't have been standard procedure to pitch them out into the cold with no direction the way that he and Naruto had been.

He was numb to the world, even as he sat down on a couch in Naruto's living room, both he and his original partner facing this new girl. His lips were so dry. He had to lick them to keep them from cracking when he said something, "…What's your name?"

"Tenten." She said with a small smile, seemingly relieved. The girl really was quite pretty, "I'm so glad… four years. I thought…" A tear fell from her eye, "I thought that they'd sent me away to die. I couldn't do that mission by myself. I couldn't. It's impossible. There's no way I'd survive it on my own."

"Yeah, I know." Naruto said, willing to grin even though a tear had come from Tenten's eye. Even with that, everything was going to be okay now. They were together, and that was the thing all along, "So how are you gonna get us in contact with Konohagakure? We really have a decent shot at getting the legendary weapons from Ryouzanpaku, we just need someone to tell us what we're really supposed to be looking for."

That seemed to confuse the girl, "Wh-What?" She was starting to seem scared at what she was hearing, "What are you talking about? Ryouzan-what? That's not the mission. And I thought that you two were the contacts for the mission to-." She almost didn't want to say it, "I'm supposed to find a way to fraudulently wire money from a top corporation into the account of a Konoha business front, but they never gave me anywhere to send the money to, and I wasn't ever good at things like that."

"What were you good at?" Shikamaru asked, his suspicions returning one-hundred fold. The way she talked about what she wasn't good at started raising his alarms ten-fold.

"Marksmanship." Tenten admitted, fishing a few throwing tools from her person for them to see. There was certainly a variety, "I can hit anything with anything from anywhere. If I can throw it or shoot it I can make it kill or incapacitate someone. It's really the only thing I ever stood out at in the Homeland."

"So." Naruto ventured to ask with a shrug, "Can you like, show us something to prove it?"

Tenten just gave him a dry look in return, "Trust me, there's nothing around here hard enough to hit for me to prove it, moving or otherwise." She sounded… very sure of herself, to an almost alarming degree as if she were daring him to question it.

Letting it slide, Naruto scratched his head in confusion while Shikamaru voiced his own thoughts aloud, "So why would they send you on a mission that you don't have the skills for to begin with? They didn't even let you know about anyone that could show you how, or even put you in any kind of situation to succeed?"

Tenten didn't have the answer to that, "I thought when they told me about my mission it would be an assassination or something… but not this." Her eyes turned up to the two of them, the light seemingly drained back out of them again, "…You're not my contact with the Homeland are you?"

No they weren't. Just like she wasn't theirs.

She was given a mission that would invariably end up with her getting caught. She'd have to spend years and years learning a skill that she hadn't left the island with to accomplish her mission, if she ever learned it at all. And even if she did they never gave her a place to send the stolen funds. It was setting her up to get her thrown into a hole for the remainder of her life, however brief or long it was.

"…So what was yours?" The new girl asked the pair of them wryly, slumping back in her seat. She didn't know how she was feeling. Her head was spinning. She found out that they were ninjas by sheer chance, and if they hadn't crossed paths in such a roundabout way they wouldn't have met up at all. They would have never known about each other, "You didn't finish yours either did you?"

"Working on it." Naruto groused in a mumble before defending himself, "We're closer than ever actually." So how the hell were they supposed to turn in the results without a damn contact!? How were kids fresh out of basic training supposed to accomplish this stuff? Even if they were supposed to be the ones chosen to depart early. Did that have to mean that they were left alone?

What about Shikamaru's family? He had one, this Naruto knew. They probably didn't know where he was or anything. He asked about it all the time, especially about the part where he figured that grads got sent back to their homes, but Shikamaru just got crabby or clammed up altogether, even more than normal.

Tenten had a similar pit-like feeling in her stomach that she could tell that she shared with Shikamaru due to his body posture. Like Naruto she didn't have anyone waiting on her at any kind of home. She'd been recruited as a little orphan. But even so, this was the final nail in her coffin so to speak.

There wasn't anything that could be changed about it then though. The only difference between yesterday and today was that she grew more cynical toward the Homeland of the Konohagakure ninjas that she was meant to be loyal to. 'Specialist' her ass.

She knew it was too good to be true that she had become a genin with how her tenure while in training had usually been received. She was great at one particular aspect of it. Incredible actually, but most other things left much to be desired.

"Well." She said, trying to brighten back up for the time being, "I guess I'll have to find ways to avoid fighting you. People like us need to stick together right?" Joining the Valkyries was only meant to be done so that she could train herself since she was all alone, "I guess I'll leave the gang."

Konoha ties trumped all others. That was what they were taught. It was easier to accept when the other ties weren't really that tight at all. Even if they were what Tenten and Shikamaru figured they were, which severed the Konoha ties, they might as well have kept to each other. Why not? It wasn't like they had anyone else.

"You knew them before you knew us though." Naruto said, feeling kind of bad. Yeah, the Valkyries were Ragnarok, and yeah they were kind of in a whole thing, but seriously. First Takeda, now Tenten. He didn't even have to fight her first.

"Tch, by like six months. Technically you and I go way further back." Tenten said, waving the whole thing off with a comfortable smile, "I never liked being subservient to anyone my own age anyway, even though Freya-chan is stronger. But I really hate Ragnarok." Her smile then got noticeably _un_comfortable, "…I don't have anywhere to stay if I do that though, and if I quit they'll know I did and then I'll get the deserter's penalty."

Both Naruto and Shikamaru just stared at her blankly.

"…Which is a beating…"

Still staring. So what? One jump-out and she could do what she wanted afterwards. Big deal.

"From the Valkyries and Freya-chan…with weapons… some of them with blades."

Okay, that wasn't good. The potential for something to go wrong with that was way too high, and they probably knew

Slowly both Naruto and Shikamaru pointed at the other, offering the other's home as temporary lodging for their fellow 'genin'. Tenten in return just stared dryly at the two of them and clicked her tongue, "Really? Real mature guys. I'm not a fan of this either. I don't really have any other options right now otherwise I wouldn't ask." She groused, showing that she was greatly displeased with having to rely on anyone else for something like this.

"How long have you been here?" Shikamaru asked,

"I just moved to town a few months ago." Tenten admitted, "I really don't want to stay in a big city because it made me feel like I had to rush to come up with a way to do my 'mission'." Now with what she knew she figured herself to have been in the right to keep herself from jumping the gun.

"Well who do you want to stay with?" Naruto ventured to ask, realizing that she didn't seem to like it anymore than either of them did.

Tenten didn't hesitate before pointing over at Shikamaru who palmed his forehead hard and let out a displeased groan, "Why? Why me? I live in an apartment. Naruto's house is a two-story with like four bedrooms. It's way better. Look at how nice this place is."

"Yeah, it is I'll admit." Tenten said with a scoff, "But he's the target of Ragnarok, not you. I'm not staying here in case it eventually gets to the point where they'd try something on his home if they found out where it was."

That put a bit of alarm in Naruto's heart. Not because he was really afraid, but because having an enemy that had no problems with attacking your home was a worst-case scenario nightmare situation for a ninja, "They'd do that?" Great, so now he'd have to booby-trap his parents' property in case he ever slipped up and the bad guys found out where he lived, "It's a bunch of street punks! What the hell?"

Tenten just shrugged, "Most of them wouldn't. Freya-chan wouldn't. Actually, I think the only one that would is Loki, and maybe Berserker, but even then Berserker would just challenge you outright instead of doing something really underhanded." Be that as it may, "I'm still staying with pineapple-head here though."

"Of course you are." Shikamaru said with a roll of his eyes, "Because every time I want to stay as far away from some kind of situation that I can, something always comes around that pulls me right into it."

'Oh this guy's gonna be a ray of sunshine.' Tenten thought to herself before looking Naruto's way with an eyebrow raised.

"He's always like that. You get used to it." Naruto said, answering the question that she never even asked, "So why don't you both move here then? I've got the space." And it got seriously lonely there by himself, "I don't even know what Shika does to pay rent on his place." Or why he didn't just live there to begin with.

At this point, both Tenten and Naruto were staring intensely at Shikamaru who was doing his damndest not to meet their gaze, "Do I have to?"

"Do you have a reason not to?" Naruto asked before putting his hand out, "Come on. We should stick together right?" Tenten rolled her eyes as she had said that herself just moments ago, but smiled despite herself and put her hand in, "Come on Shikamaru, don't be that guy."

"I _am_ that guy." But despite saying that, he reached forward and put his hand in as well, "Alright." He conceded, much to one small cheer from the other two, "We're all we've got I guess, so sure. We should call this 'Ninja House' or something now if this is the way it's going to be."

XxX

(The Next Day – Kouryo High School)

Naruto felt kind of strange, due to the fact that Kenichi was staring at him with shining eyes as if he were excited about something. Legitimately excited about the band-aids and the bruises clearly on his face and arms that were visible beneath his dress shirt. Weird, "So?" He urged, trying to get Naruto to tell him something, "The training? It's inhuman right? You can't believe someone's making you do this right?"

He seemed to be grasping for a lifeline, for someone that could somewhat share in his own torment in training.

"Okay, Kenichi seriously." Naruto said, squinting his eyes at him in his own particular way, "It's rough. Really rough." Shigure beat him unconscious with that damn bamboo rod while trying to get him to learn how to dodge a pole-arm… three times. And Kenichi saw the tail end of it, "But it's not like I didn't expect it."

"You expected it!?" He just shook his head in disbelief, "How can you expect it?"

Miu frowned from where she was sitting by their desks and chimed in, "Kenichi-kun, think about what you know the masters can do?" Thinking about that caused him to make several different faces, each one getting more grim than the last, "…Now can you possibly imagine the kind of training someone would have to do to get that strong?"

No he couldn't. To her, it really wasn't that unbelievable, but then again she'd been living with seeing the impossible for her entire life.

"I didn't expect to get thrown onto the freeway." Naruto admitted with a wide and uneasy grin before wincing a bit in soreness, "But I did see everything else coming. It's been a while since I hurt myself training." Although technically Shigure had been the one to hurt him.

That didn't make him any less testy about having to go weaponless until further notice, but there wasn't much he could do about that. If he did it behind her back and she found out about it he'd be punished for it, probably by being dropped from being taught. Like it or not, it was the job of the student to listen to their teacher and learn what they had to teach them.

Whether he had full faith in 'the system' or not was irrelevant. He'd made his own bed and he'd be man enough to lie in it. He didn't have to accept the offer of training, he chose to, and that meant everything that came with it.

Either way, they had two hours of club activities coming up before they had to report back to Ryouzanpaku and get to work again. One of them was dreading it more than the other. One guess as to which it was.

"Right." Naruto said, pushing himself up from his seat as he grabbed his bag, "Well look at it this way, it's just one more day and then we've got the underclass field trip. Even they won't be able to do anything to you there."

That was right.

It sounded like a dream to Kenichi. They'd be getting back so late that day that they wouldn't possibly make him train. No way. For once he wouldn't be getting physically dissected by his masters, "Oh man. No weird machines or having to throw huge statues for Koetsuji-sensei, no having to survive sparring with Apachai-sensei, none of it."

"Yeah, sucks for you." Naruto idly remarked as they all started to leave, "It's tough, but come on man, you've got to suck it up faster. Right now mine is all about-."

"-Getting hit with a bamboo rod by Shigure-san." Miu slyly added to get Naruto to tone down on Kenichi, "I saw some of it. First rocks, then a rod. I think she's having fun training you."

"Getting hit isn't the point. I'm supposed to be learning how to counter a weapon with that kind of reach." Naruto said before getting a wide grin, "And yeah, when it doesn't hurt like hell it's fun."

At that, Kenichi raised an eyebrow, because something about that didn't sound right, "…Wait, when doesn't it hurt?" Everything about training hurt, at least from his perspective.

"Shigure's training doesn't _always_ hurt me." Naruto defended as they walked through the halls, "It just hurts most of the time. The good news is that I don't think I'll have much trouble getting past someone with a staff again."

"Sounds like you ran into the Third Fist Freya."

After walking past a corner and hearing a voice from just behind it, the trio found that a hand had placed itself on Miu's shoulder only for the perpetrator of said action to find himself hurled over her and slammed right onto the floor, "Ah, oh no, I'm so sorry!" Miu fretted in concern at the quite flattened non-combatant.

Both Naruto and Kenichi watched this without a degree of sympathy, "And that's why I don't ever try to get behind her in spars." Naruto said, getting an understanding nod from Kenichi who'd been subjected to similar accidental throws already.

"Now I know." Kenichi said astutely in return.

"And knowing his half the battle." Both of them said simultaneously before looking around and wondering where the hell that had come from in their minds. Oh well. Who cared? Someone just got body-slammed.

A cough came up from a quite thoroughly flattened Niijima Haruo who was currently seeing stars due to what had just occurred, "It's… it's alright. I'm fine." He wasn't fine, but then again Miu was pretty much the only person that cared.

Apparently the sharp-eared Niijima had been waiting there for them there, or… "Did you follow us all the way from class and find a place to cut us off ahead so you could look cool?" Naruto asked as Kenichi stepped over him and continued along, "Because I would have known if you'd been standing there for a while."

"Nope." Kenichi said, waving his arms in a dismissive manner, "No, I don't care what he wants, or what he's here for. It's nothing good for any of us. I'm out of here."

"Kenichi-kun!" Miu called out after him before figuring that at this point they'd be splitting up anyway, him to go to Gardening Club and her and Naruto to get to their respective athletic endeavors, "Mmm, I guess I'll see him again soon enough as it is."

"Oh come on!" Niijima said, making a miraculous recovery and jumping up to his feet in a bid to get Kenichi to stop before turning to face Miu, "Wait, if I grab his shoulder from behind he's not going to automatically Judo throw me on my head like she did is he?"

Miu's cheeks flared red in deep embarrassment as she and Naruto both shook their heads no, "What's up?" Naruto asked, more willing than Kenichi to deal with Niijima's weird machinations.

It wasn't that Naruto particularly thought of him as a friend, it was just that he had often been so normally suspicious that he always figured he'd know way in advance if Niijima was going to screw him over.

"I heard that you guys ran into a scrape of trouble with two of the Fists." Niijima said, almost tauntingly, "Attacking on a day out with someone's little sister." He clicked his tongue pityingly, "But I have an idea."

"I like ideas. I'm listening." Naruto said as he and Miu continued on with Niijima trailing them, somehow orbiting the two of them.

"If you want to take down Ragnarok I've got a group of likeminded students that are tired of Ragnarok bullying everyone around here. I'll show you." Niijima said, grinning at the thought of his gathering of would-be underlings, closing his eyes to dream of the prospect, "So I propose that you train them and teach them your ninja skills. Then there'll be new sheriffs in town; you, me, and Kenichi, and they'll have an army of assassins!"

Just a bunch of regular guys that got tired of it all and decided to do something about it. The sky was the limit when it came to an organization with those grassroots beginnings.

"Ew. What's this freak talking about?"

"I don't know. He just started circling around us while we were walking."

Niijima opened his eyes to find that somehow he'd stopped pacing circles around Naruto and Miu and had started doing so to two random schoolgirls. Damn it, he did it again! That weird subtle switching places thing that he did to lose him at the restaurant.

How'd he keep doing that?

In an entirely different hallway heading into the direction of the male and female locker rooms, Miu looked behind them in the direction that they'd left Niijima in, "That wasn't very nice to leave him there without saying anything like that Naruto-kun." Though she did wonder how he managed to get Niijima out of position on them like that. They didn't even do anything, 'Ninja hypnotism maybe?' She thought hopefully.

"Well sorry, but I don't want to hear any of that." Naruto said, holding his hands up behind his neck as he walked, eyes squinted closed, "I can't train anybody." First and foremost because how was a genin going to know how to train anyone? He was the lowest level of ninja there was. There were other more official reasons too, but nobody wanted to hear any of that, "I thought he was going to tell me something good, like a Ragnarok hideout or something."

"Would you attack them if you knew where they were?"

"Yeah." He was a ninja. That was kind of what they did. Fighting out in the open wasn't really their first choice for a conflict, "I'm sick of getting jumped in the street. But I've got someone that can definitely help."

"You do?" Miu sounded excited at the chance of an advantage going in their favor for once, "That's great!"

"…Just as soon as I help her move and get settled in." Naruto muttered to himself off-handedly before quickly moving his body out of the way of crashing into someone carrying a rather bulky piece of stage decoration, "Whoa!"

"Ah, sorry." The young man carrying the piece of scenery had wavy blond hair, a long-sleeved grey shirt with a big red cross on it, a calm look in his eyes, and a rather easy-going smile, "I can't really see where I'm going while I'm carrying this thing." Setting the piece down he wiped at his brow and leaned against it, "Oh, hey Uzumaki-san. Long time no see."

Well lo and behold, Naruto didn't know he'd be running into the male idol of the school today. The ace actor in the school's Drama Club. Tanimoto Natsu. Male and female students alike considered him the most popular student there was in the place, for different reasons.

"Tanimoto!" Naruto said with a grin, "Yeah, it has been a while, right?" Naruto stuck his hand forward for Natsu to shake, which he did, but Naruto noticed something about how his body reacted when he initially offered his hand, "Heh, well don't worry about it. Even if you ran into me with that thing, I'm pretty tough. It'd be fine." Naruto exhibited this by knocking on his own noggin.

"That's what people say." Natsu said before readjusting his grip on his stage piece and picking it back up with a grunt of effort, "Who'd have known that you were really a ninja? Didn't think those were real. Maybe you're the one that should be an actor if you can hide something like that for as long as you did."

"Maa, it's nothing like that, seriously." Naruto said before pointing in the direction that he and Miu needed to head off in, "Well we've gotta go. Club stuff and everything." Natsu gave him an understanding look before the more outgoing blond male left with 'Ryouzanpaku's Princess', "Later."

"You know that person well?" Miu asked Naruto as they continued on their way, "I thought you didn't have many friends here other than Kenichi-kun and me."

"Well Tanimoto isn't really a friend Miu-chan, he's… what's the word that means 'friend' but not quite 'friend.'"

"Acquaintance Naruto-kun." She supplied helpfully to finish his statement.

"Yeah, that. He's just a nice guy." Naruto said, sparing Natsu a wave goodbye over his shoulder as they left, "Everybody that goes here knows who he is. You do too don't you?" Miu hummed affirmatively with a nod, "…Wish girls thought I was cool like that."

As he saw them leave, Natsu's eyes seemed to shift to something more threatening for a second, like night and day from his previous demeanor before he continued about his own business with his club activity, 'Soon enough. Not now. For all I know it wouldn't even be worth the effort.' With that, he pasted his usual amicable persona up and kept on going.

XxX

(The Next Day – Class Field Trip)

Under cover of dark night, Naruto and Shikamaru had managed to help Tenten move her things out of where she'd been staying, leaving not a trace of her behind except for her outfit for the Valkyries. It would take a little while for someone to notice that she'd left and a little bit after that to realize that she'd quit.

Then word would get out that she'd quit and a lookout would be kept for her to give her the Ragnarok deserter's punishment.

But until then she'd be just fine holing up at Naruto's house and skipping school until something could be done about it. She didn't have a problem with that at all for the most part. With Shikamaru also living there now, wracking his brain in order to solve the problem double-time and with the things that Tenten had on Ragnarok, it would be a matter of time until they had something together to use.

Either way, there wasn't anything about it that could be done now, because Naruto was on a mandatory school trip to that year's career fair. While it was a relative break from classroom monotony, it was still pretty boring too.

Being held in a basement convention hall of a local arena, it was just a gathering of booths and tables where adults from different companies could talk about how graduates should look at working with them and whatnot. If you stopped and listened at one you stopped at them all, and all of the free magnets and company pens couldn't make that a fun experience. It lost its novelty very quickly.

While looking at careers was an important thing for Naruto in regards to a cover in the future, the job he would wind up getting was not going to be something that would have him sitting as middle-management behind a desk. Even though he wasn't quite grown up yet, he was almost there and he could tell already that a job like that wasn't going to fly with him.

A better, cooler job would have been something like security consultant. That'd be great… or a rock star. Yeah, definitely rock star. He had the chops for that. Why wasn't there a booth for that? To be fair though, there was a booth for something with security, but not his kind of security.

"Why are we moving outside away from the rest of the group?" Miu asked as Naruto jogged up the stairs leading down to the basement complex to sit on a planter just at the top of it, "There's still two hours left." Kenichi was there as well, gripping a soft drink that they'd been giving out for free at one of the booths inside.

"I can't be in there anymore." Naruto said, rubbing his eyes underneath his goggles to try and adjust them back to natural light as opposed to the fluorescent lighting that permeated the room down below, "Ugh, is that what getting a job is all about?"

"It's a rat race." Kenichi said, deciding that complaining to Naruto about separating from the rest of the underclassmen on the trip wouldn't do any good, "It can stress you out. That's what my dad says anyway." And it showed, because at times his dad could be a little… unhinged. At least he didn't see Naruto as a bad enough influence to pull a shotgun on him every time they made eye contact anymore.

"It's still important for us to start thinking about now." Miu chided with a wag of the finger Naruto's way, "You don't want to be the kind of person like most of the masters at the dojo." Only Akisame and Kensei brought in any kind of real income. It was a damn shame, six grown adults living in the same place and only two of them had a real job.

"Yeah, about that." Naruto said, bringing up a point, "I always wondered how you guys can afford that place if only two of them make any money."

"I don't want to talk about it." The fact that they were constantly hovering around being broke at that place and the fact that she seemed to be the only one that took it seriously was a bit of a sore spot for Miu.

"No for real, my and Kenichi's tuition isn't worth squat compared to what it'd take to-."

"I really don't want to talk about it." She balled herself up on the ground, back turned and poking at the cement with her index finger uncomfortably.

A silence fell over them as Kenichi busied himself with drinking his drink until Naruto spoke up topically, "So do you think Sakaki would kick me through a wall if I called him a karate bum the next time he starts making fun of me?" Kenichi spit out his soda at the seemingly innocent question and sputtered carbonated beverage out of his windpipe.

"I don't see how he could rightfully hurt you for telling the truth." Miu groused with a slight smile at the thought of calling them all out more often. She was just too polite to do such a thing. Naruto wasn't though.

With a yawn, Naruto jumped up and lifted his goggles off of his eyes, "Well thanks for wasting some time with me. I'm not going back down there though." He gave his backpack a pat and sighed, "I've got some swag from every booth. There's no reason to keep acting like I'm listening." He was going to go kill some time before they had to leave by walking around the arena.

"And if you miss the bus?" Kenichi pointed out, getting up to chase after Naruto as he headed toward the main arena building, "You might get expelled or at least suspended."

"I can tell time. And it's just a walk." Naruto replied, waving off the concern, "You guys can go back. You don't have to follow me." He'd like the company, but he wasn't going to force anyone to go with him.

"I'll go just to make sure you get back." Kenichi said, fixing Naruto with a careful glance, "I think if I left you alone and you got in trouble, and the masters found out about it I'd wind up paying for it in training somehow."

"That's a morbid thought Kenichi-kun." Miu said, but she couldn't deny that he might have had a point, "Well I suppose it'll all be okay if we get back to the buses on time."

"That's the spirit! Let's go break into some private property!"

Well he never said _where_ he was going to go for a walk, just that he was going on one.

XxX

(Inside of the Arena)

The idea to cut out from the career fair proceedings was not the sole idea of Naruto's, nor was he the first to have it. Ragnarok also had first and second-year students of which it had been absolutely mandatory for them to attend or they'd have been held back a year for not going.

Delinquents or not, failing a year was a mark of failure and a huge point of ridicule, even amongst their own peers.

Just because they were required to go however, didn't mean that they were required to pay attention or even act like they were intrigued in the slightest. They didn't care a bit about what they were going to do later in life.

Having 'found' their way into a luxury box, some of them found it as a way to relax away from all of the stale rhetoric coming from adults that they didn't want to hear.

"This is so much better…" Kisara said, lounging around on several seats like they were a temporary sofa, "…So much better than listening to a bunch of old fogies drone on and on like recruiters. Stupid mandatory trip."

"At least we've found a place to talk business Kisara-sama." Also in attendance despite not being a student at all was Kisara's top personal bodyguard Shiratori, "The situation with Uzumaki and… Shirahama-." At that, Shiratori trailed off slightly with sine red on her cheeks for a split-second, "-Is getting more bothersome."

"Tch." Kisara knew that. It seemed like fools were beginning to grow backbones now or something. Ragnarok wasn't dictating the outright obedience to get others to tow the line in school that they'd managed to obtain before then.

This wasn't good. She'd worked hard to establish the control she'd gotten over the high school, and it was falling apart now, for what?

Takeda and Ukita hadn't fallen back into line as her underlings and Takeda had even defended Shirahama Kenichi as best he could against another of the Eight Fists. If this kept up she was going to lose her spot.

Those two traitors that had once been part of her Technique Trio could be dealt with whenever. They weren't important other than that they needed to be made examples of. The true disruptors of the balance of things were still running around, and one of them was a blithering idiot.

"Man this place looks dingier when there aren't shows set. ECHO!"

The sound of that voice immediately caused a vein to form above Kisara's eye, "Speaking of the idiot…" Well every underclassman was supposed to go to these things. Even if they hadn't been transported on the same vehicle it was only common sense that he'd be there too.

"The lights are usually down during show times Naruto-san."

Sitting up from her previously relaxed positioning, Kisara looked down from the luxury box she was in and smirked at the sight. Not just Uzumaki but Shirahama as well and some third person, a blonde girl with glasses. They'd just poked their heads into the arena for a moment, walking around some of the mid-level before heading back out into the hall.

Adjusting her beret on her head, Kisara got up and departed the room with Shiratori to rouse the small number of goons she had on-hand on the trip, "Time to go kill two birds with one stone."

XxX

In the hallway of the arena, the trio of first-year students conversed amongst themselves while walking about, "Kenichi-kun's little sister is absolutely adorable!" Miu recalled, the topic had been about Kenichi finally taking the plunge to move into the dojo and it drifted over to the family that Kenichi still had at home, "Don't you wish you had one Naruto-kun?"

"I guess, but I've got his already." Naruto remarked, slugging Kenichi lightly on the shoulder, getting a friendly one back in return, "I think about it, but why would I fret over something that I can't change?"

Sure, he thought all the time about what could have been if Kushina and Minato had remained alive long enough for him to return to them. Maybe he would have actually had a little brother or sister? Maybe 'this', maybe 'that', he didn't know.

All he could do was keep his eyes straight ahead and move forward. Looking back only hurt.

"If you want her for real you can have her." Kenichi said, thinking about what a handful Honoka could be more often than not. She was not a fan of his moving out, but a man had to do what a man had to do. She calmed down after realizing that he had done it to ensure that the next time what had happened with Loki took place again he wouldn't have to run and hide her to protect her, "I'd be lying if I said I won't miss her a bit though."

"She can come over anytime she wants." Miu said, throwing out the thought that he could never see her, "The masters wouldn't isolate you like that. You can go see your family whenever you want, I'm sure of it." Her sunny disposition vanished when she heard a thud and voices from further around the circular hall, "…Did you hear that?"

They shouldn't have been in there to begin with, but it didn't sound like arena workers. No, from the language and the boisterous sounds of their speech they were… "Delinquents?" Kenichi said to himself with a gulp. Without saying anything else, Naruto lifted the screen to a concession stand where he dove behind to take cover, "Those are supposed to be locked! How'd you open that?"

"I picked it." Naruto said, beckoning both Miu and Kenichi to head back there with him before he pulled the screen back down as footsteps came their way, "Grr, I wish I knew how many there were." Fuck it, it didn't matter. No matter how many there were they were about to go down.

"Thirteen." Miu said, stopping Naruto from taking off his bag and getting him to stare at her blankly along with Kenichi. Knowing that they were wondering how she knew without being able to see she shrugged with a slight blush, "I can tell from the footsteps. Blame grandpa."

"Right." Kenichi said, giving her a worried look, 'She really did grow up with nothing but martial arts didn't she?' He thought to himself before turning to a muttering Naruto who was digging deep into his bag, "What's wrong?"

A distasteful look sprang onto Naruto's face at the current reminder that he was conventionally unarmed once he pulled out a mug that he'd swiped from a stand, "I just remembered that Shigure took all of my weapons until she said I could carry them again."

"What?" Kenichi more or less squeaked, "Why the hell did she do that? She's supposed to be teaching you how to use weapons!" Once again, the weirdness of the Ryouzanpaku masters and their methods shined through, "What part of that involves taking them away?"

"I don't know." Naruto said, switching things up and fishing through his pockets for something, "But I'm a man of my word."

All he had in his pocket were his keys, his wallet, a cell phone, a fistful of company coins he'd gotten from different stands all day, and that was all. With a grunt, Naruto went back into his bag and pulled out some tape. Making a fist, he stuck the coins between the grooves his clenched fingers made and taped them into place.

"What are you doing?" Miu whispered as it sounded like the bad guys were right on top of them, "That doesn't seem safe."

'For who?' Kenichi thought to himself, imagining getting punched with those makeshift knuckle-dusters.

Admittedly it would probably turn the skin on his fingers to mincemeat, but hey, "Everything's a weapon." Naruto reasoned for his actions before his eyes widened and he looked down at his hand, "…Everything's a weapon. Oh that better not be one of the 'rules'." He said to himself.

It made sense though. After she'd given him her terms, Shigure had gone about silently wailing on him with an odd assortment of items meant to resemble other weapons. A bamboo rod for a staff wasn't that odd, nor was pitching rocks at him. Then she started using weirder stuff to make him work on his defense. He laughed out loud when she presented a leek as a weapon, until she used it to cut his clothes to ribbon somehow.

She never said a word though, other than explaining what was expected of him during their exercises. And between all of the beatings… err, spars, it was entirely reasonable that points like that would be lost in translation when he kept getting his bell rung for making what she saw to be missteps in his evasive movements.

Still though, he told himself exactly that all the time, that everything was a weapon. He didn't know that was actually something that other people tried to take to heart too.

That should have given him a point to start really bonding with his would-be sensei over, but not now. All of this did however lead to one rather ticked off Naruto, "…Of all the wannabe philosophical, proverb bullshit!"

"Wait, I heard something behind the concession stand!"

"Naruto what the hell!?" Kenichi shouted at him as the metal screen slid up. But as soon as the light from outside got in, Naruto popped up and hit three curious Ragnarok members in the face with his loaded right hand, rapid-fire style.

Their legs gave out as if they were boneless, but those that had been standing back didn't see Naruto, they just saw Kenichi and Miu jump out and blast the next two nearest gang members with kicks.

Three more came at Kenichi, deciding to save the sweet-looking honey for last after they beat up the nerd. Either would have been a mistake, but Kenichi flattened one them with a stiff straight right to the body. Pulling the first boy's entire form in front of him to force the second to pick a side, Kenichi circled around on the opposite and took him out with straight front kick to the head that laid him on the ground.

The last one tried to take advantage of an opening by kicking at his body, but Kenichi moved into it, catching it under his arm high up on the leg at the knee and pressing it tightly against his body with a grand squeeze to suddenly damage the leg, "Ugyuu Haito!" The defensive move worked, and he knew it did when he let go and his enemy immediately fell to the ground clutching his leg, "Sorry. I just saw the opening and went for it. I really hope I didn't break it."

Wow. This guy really was serious. And he was apologizing for it?

"Don't you ever give up?" Miu asked, standing ready to fight as well, "It's a school trip. Why would you start a street fight at a time like this?"

One of the braver members stepped forward, a switchblade opened up to threaten them with as he tossed it from hand to hand, "Ragnarok business comes first. Right boys!?" He expected a rousing cry of agreement from his fellow members, but all he got was the sound of tape being pulled off and the sound of loose coins falling onto the floor, "Heh?"

Instead of having a slew of comrades at his back, he had Naruto standing there around a mass of felled Ragnarok members, shaking out his right hand and blowing on his fist. Let it never be said that Kenichi and Miu didn't make for a grand distraction.

Upon making eye contact with Naruto, the blue-eyed ninja bucked in the thug's direction, scaring the in over his head young punk into running away, right into Kenichi who grabbed an arm and hurled him over the shoulder, hard and onto the ground, "Oogoshi!"

Miu clapped her hands together, pleased that Kenichi's techniques were so ingrained in his head that they were basically second nature at this point. She didn't even have to step in at all, though that was mostly because Naruto had taken out every other living soul behind the one guy's back without making a sound somehow.

"Kenichi."

"Yeah Naruto-san?"

"Does this whole situation remind you of anything?" Naruto asked, peering down the circular hallway as far as he could, "You remember that game we used to play back in the arcades. You know, the one that had those scenes where you were running down a hallway and had to hit the right button to take out a whole bunch of guys without fighting them?"

"The one where you were a cop and all the levels happened in one huge office building the whole time? Yeah." He forgot what it was called at the moment, but he loved that game.

Both boys looked at each other before seemingly synching thoughts and charging down the hall in opposite directions at the exact same speed, much to Miu's confusion because she was entirely unaware of what they'd been previously referring to, and why Naruto was running at the exact same speed as Kenichi.

XxX

Surrounded by a close guard of sorts, Kisara languished through the halls, wondering how long it took to find three people. They could have split up or something in order to make it harder to pin them down, but she doubted it for some reason.

Footsteps could be heard running her way, and like some kind of semi-trained servicemen, her regulars moved into position, fists raised and ready to fight. Of course the first thing they saw come around the curve of the hallway was a backpack that was hurled right at them. One of them tried to catch it, underestimating how heavy it was when it hit like a medicine ball and knocked two down.

Off of that distraction, both Naruto and Miu of all people wound up landing a pair of flying kicks with a full head of steam behind them. Naruto was more of a jerk about it and off of his double-legged dropkick, landed using his bag and the two people that had been knocked down by it as human cushions, "Ha! Did you see that? That was awesome! Way to go Miu-chan."

Kenichi had pulled off from doing it when he realized that he'd be attacking unprepared opponents from behind due to the direction that he'd taken as opposed to Naruto's. Him and his damnable code of ethics. That was just fine though, Miu more picked up the slack from the front and she kicked harder anyway.

Since he didn't attack they didn't get to Kisara and Shiratori, but it did make for one hell of an entrance at the very least, which was almost as good.

"Why did we do that anyway?" Miu asked, though she wasn't complaining about it. She was actually smiling as she readjusted her glasses on her face. As if there was a need for her to still make her appearance less conspicuous when she was doing things like that.

"Because it seemed cool and they didn't see it coming." Naruto said as he put his bag back on and made sure his targets were all out of it, "It would have been cooler if Kenichi did it too. That could have been the greatest high-low finish ever."

"I realized that it wasn't fair so I stopped." Kenichi explained easily with a pleasant smile on his face. It made plenty of sense to him. He wasn't the 'attack the enemy from behind without warning' kind of guy.

"They just got through pulling a knife on you!"

"Doesn't mean I have to stoop to their level!"

"Oh, so I'm a bad guy now because I don't like fighting head-on?"

"It doesn't help!"

Kisara placed her fingers up to her mouth and let out a loud and sharp whistle to stop the polar opposite ninja and fledgling martial artist from arguing any further, "Well, well, well." She said with a smirk, "The famous Shirahama… and Uzumaki, that healed up nicely didn't it?" She said, indicating his previous injury that she'd dealt him.

"Yeah it did." Naruto lifted up his forearm and held it out showingly, "Bet you can't fucking do it again!" He said as he extended his left arm with a fist and held his right in a half-ram seal as was his ready stance.

Kisara let out a pleased laugh and ran her fingers across the brim of her hat before getting into her own set position for her Taekwondo, "Now that's what I'm talking about. Let's dance."

"Naruto, you can't fight a woman!" Kenichi cried out before the two could begin attacking each other, "It's not right to put your hands on a woman like that!"

"You beat up Shiratori over there! I don't want to hear that out of you!"

At that, Kenichi turned embarrassedly towards the second and bowed deeply in apologizing to her, "Ah, I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to-. I mean I _did_ mean to at the time, but I didn't want to after I found out-." He was too busy sputtering as he tried to come up with what he wanted to say to notice that Shiratori's face had gotten all flustered.

"I-It's not a big deal Shirahama-san." Shiratori said in return, turning away from the entire thing to hide her face, 'What a gentleman.' She also missed Miu's slight glare as well, but the latter said nothing so it went unsaid.

Kisara gave Naruto a look as if to ask whether or not Kenichi was serious. Naruto sighed and nodded slowly, "Ugh. Whatever. So it'll be two-on-two and then Mr. Chivalry here can get kicked to sleep whether he fights back or not." She turned to look at Miu and the slender kicker froze.

Wondering what caused the boisterous kicking female to stop all of her tough talk, both Naruto and Kenichi followed her line of vision to find that she was looking directly at Miu's breasts with intense focus. Then their train of vision continued on to look at Kisara's chest. And then they repeated the process several times. Kenichi's nose began to dribble a bit of blood.

Shiratori saw this and gazed at her own chest, cursing her own lack of noticeable development in that department.

Miu was utterly befuddled as to the reasoning behind the lull in the hostilities and the reason why Kisara was directing all of her hateful stare at her, "Uh, can I help you?"

"I don't like you." Kisara bluntly stated much to Miu's chagrin as she began to tear up in shock at the callous remark, "You think those things on your chest make you so great?"

"Yes." Naruto said as Miu covered her chest with her hands, "They sure don't hurt."

"Shut up Uzumaki!" Kisara snapped at him for defending the large-breasted teenager, and then she noticed where his eyes were looking on her as well, "Eyes up asshole!" She shouted, throwing a kick at his head that he forward-rolled underneath to avoid,

"Where are you looking!?" Miu exclaimed, covering up for seemingly no reason as she backed up a few steps and moved behind an empty kiosk, "How rude! And Kenichi, stop staring at my chest! You can't even see it anymore!"

"Huh? Wha-?" Kenichi shook his head and wiped the blood from his nose only to find that he'd blown his opportunity to stop his friend from pounding on a girl as Naruto and Kisara were in the midst of fighting each other, "Naruto! Stop it!"

Naruto as a matter of fact did not stop it. Naruto's approach was to stay low, enabling him to keep his head away from getting kicked by Kisara's high power attacks and allowing himself to dive and roll out of the way of her faster lower kicks sent his way. It wasn't such an odd approach for a ninja to take, but it would have worked better if he'd had a weapon like his manriki-gusari to tangle her legs.

'Tch.' Kisara thought to herself as she alternated between strong swinging kicks with her back leg and stomping motions with her front to try and catch Naruto slipping when/if he made a mistake, 'Without anyone around to take his attention off of me can he really read my moves that well?'

Damn all of the space they had to play with. He could keep moving away, away, away all he wanted. And that was just what he was doing. Attack damn it!

Why wasn't he attacking? This thought made Kisara strike out at him harder and faster. If he wouldn't come at her she wouldn't stop coming at him, to make him see just what bone-breaking pressure he could count on if he underestimated her.

He wasn't underestimating her though. Not a bit. He'd felt firsthand that her kicks could shatter his bone if he blocked her wrong. No, he had to go about this differently. Her legs were too fast for him to play to his usual strategy of darting in and out for quick striking tactics, 'She's still wearing steel-toed boots.'

Naruto could hear them scrape across the tile on the floor when the tips of her toes slid across them for another kick. She was so good with her legs that they barely touched the ground despite lightly scraping it. There was no drag or loss of speed with her moves.

His mistake in their first meeting hadn't been to block, it had been the method he'd used to block her. A regular person's legs were usually stronger than the arms. So how strong would a kicking specialist's legs be in comparison to anyone's arms?

Stopping to try his hand at fighting her, Naruto stood up straight as Kisara threw a low kick and raised his own leg on the corresponding side off of the ground to check it and neutralize the force behind it.

Kicking his own leg forward, Kisara jumped back, but it was just a feint to allow Naruto to swing his whole body around to turn his back to her and shoot out his elbow for a reverse blow that covered surprising distance for moving in a backwards motion, "Boudou Nageyari (Riot Javelin)!"

The point of his elbow, as concentrated on a single point as it was, would have shattered her ribs if Kisara hadn't lifted one of her feet up to take the hit on the bottom of her boot before pushing off of him with her foot. His body motions were so illogical, but they were all a matter of technique and footwork.

Whether she knew it or not, her kicking move was a lifesaver to her, as while Naruto had his back turned to her he smoothly flipped his body forward while pushing himself back toward her, in the opposite direction of his rotation. He threw one leg all the way through to propel his flip, doubling as an impressive kick that would have broken the underside of her jaw had it landed. There wasn't any doubt about it, "Sorasake Keru (Sky Tearing Kick)!"

His foot brushed the brim of her beret, knocking it off, but she was otherwise fine and with a twist of his body to face her again upon landing they were back at a standoff.

'He was ready for his first strike to miss. He turned his back on me just to sucker me in for _that_.' As a girl that relied exclusively on kicks and kicks alone she knew an impressive kick when she saw one. The pure acrobatic ability that it would have taken to even attempt such a thing, let alone land smoothly, ready to continue fighting without missing a beat, 'I wonder how hard it would be to steal that one.'

Naruto jerked his body in one direction to try and get her to commit to responding in that direction, only for him to jump the opposite way, planting a foot on the wall and springing off for a swinging kick aimed at her head. Kisara ducked and rolled her shoulder out of the way as he landed and threw a trio of quick kicks low, mid-level, and high in quick succession.

Blocking two of them and wincing at the impact, there was no way he was going to let the third and the strongest of the combination land.

Naruto went low on the third to front sweep the leg from underneath her, but the fiery redhead jumped into the air and quickly shifted her weight to come down, planning on leveling him on her landing only to come up just short of stomping on Naruto's sweep leg. Naruto had managed to dodge via sitting down on his backside and got more space by pushing away with his feet to slide friction-free across the floor. Kisara continued to pursue as Naruto backrolled onto his feet and jumped forward with a single bound in her direction.

The sudden move jammed her attempt to kick him and stopped it entirely. Naruto shoved her in the chest to disrupt her balance, reddening her face at the fact that he'd basically just groped her, "You bastard! Stop copping a feel!"

"Whatever! If I wanted to grope _you_ I'd grab your butt, not your boobs!" Naruto cried out as he launched a series of rapid-fire punches with his left that missed Kisara's head. She stopped his flurry with a kick of all things that knocked his fist away.

"You're so full of crap!" Pulling her knee up tightly to her chest she snapped the rest of her leg up in an amazingly flexible kick that would have collided with the bottom of Naruto's chin had he not leaned back, "Go grope your cow of a girlfriend's tits if that's how you are!" She planned on lowering her leg in a crushing downward motion, "Jeek Gi (Axe Kick)!"

"Hey!" Miu cried out indignantly for more than one reason. She didn't know which thing to be angrier about, being referred to as Naruto's significant other or the crack about her breasts, "Beat her Naruto-kun!"

Needless to say, she was rooting for Naruto. He might have tried to rob her house an unhealthy number of times over the years, but at least he didn't make jokes about her boobs. He stared at them when he thought no one else was looking, but he never said anything ugly about them.

"You'll never land that on me!" Naruto yelled, grabbing Kisara's leg as it fell. Once again, he stymied her range in order to do so, shifting her point of contact from being her heel to her calf hitting him. Her calf sat on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her leg, hands placed on top of one another right on the knee set to push down, "Hizakujiku (Knee Breaker)!"

"Kisara-sama!" Shiratori cried out upon seeing her mistress in a dangerous situation. With the way Naruto had her leg, putting enough pressure right on the knee would break it easily, even merely dropping down to his knees would have been all it would have taken. Such a thing would be a possible career-ending injury for someone that used kicks.

'A ninja's physical arts are versatile.' Miu thought to herself as she bore witness to this, 'Not just striking, but they attack bones and joints, grapple and throw, use blocking and dodging as defense-into-offense attacks.'

Watching Naruto fight instead of having to deal with him herself was something new to her, and it was fun every single time she got to see some of it. When she had to fight him herself there had never been time to break down his move and his reasons for doing them to any extent, she just had to react.

'Right on the joint.' Kenichi thought with a worried look, 'He has her but…' He didn't know how brutal Naruto was willing to get to win fights, but it didn't seem like his style. From the look on his face it didn't seem like a victorious one, it seemed like he was quickly wrestling with a choice.

Catching her like that was a reflex. Naruto didn't really want to cripple the girl, but he already had her, and he had to go through with it. Kisara winced when she felt the pressure on her leg begin, and took Naruto's momentary hesitation of mercy as a chance to escape.

Jumping up with her other leg she twisted her body and kicked hard at Naruto's head. Naruto let go of her and ducked, feeling the wind blow his hair at the kick that would have landed had he not done what he had did. Still twisting from her motion, Kisara landed cleanly on her feet and patted at her knee, breathing heavily from stress.

'He could have broken it.' She thought to herself, 'He _should_ have broken it. He had me dead to rights.' Why wouldn't he have? She broke his arm. Why wouldn't he break her leg? It was revenge. Payback. A receipt as it were, "Why didn't you do it? That was your chance."

Not only that, but not doing it gave her an opening for a counterattack. It made absolutely no sense from an astute fighter's point of view. Especially since a ninja was supposed to be willing to do anything in order to achieve their objective, be it victory in battle or otherwise.

"I'm not gonna cripple someone in a stupid street fight!" Naruto said, baring his teeth heatedly. He wasn't that cold-blooded. It was deathmatch or nothing, and he hadn't been compelled to fight any of those to date, "What's the point of all of this if you're getting ready to fight some YOMI group? You act like a bunch of bullies, I don't get it."

The 'Valkyrie' of the Ragnarok group recoiled slightly at having YOMI brought up by someone that wasn't Odin. The name of their chief rival organization wasn't even known by most of their own members. Those that weren't Fists weren't privy to the name of the group, just that they were preparing to fight them.

"Why do you know about them?" Kisara asked suspiciously, "That's not supposed to be something people just find out about."

"Kanam-." Naruto almost slipped up and used the real name of one of the Eight Fists. A person that he wasn't friends or particularly familiar with before getting his bearings back, "Freya brought it up when we fought. And that still doesn't answer me, so what's up with you? What's your reason for all of this?"

"Someone like you wouldn't understand."

"Because it's stupid?" Naruto frankly asked, trying to goad Kisara into speaking candidly. It worked needless to say, in more ways than one.

"It's because you're a man you fucker! I do this to prove that women can be more powerful than men with their own strength!" Kisara shouted, suddenly jumping at Naruto into the air swiftly and smoothly with a flip to slam both of her legs into his head, neck, and/or shoulders, "Nijuu Tonkachi Ashige (Double Hammer Kick)!" It was a shockingly quick move that was stunning in its speed.

A feeling of victory washed over her as she felt her heels make contact with force, slamming him into the ground harshly with a sick thud. How did he like that? He was totally… a bag. A backpack.

…What the hell?

Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu) had claimed yet another confused victim.

'What kind of speed-?' Kisara looked around for Naruto only to wind up taking a hard flying kick straight in the small of her back that sent her flying face-first into a wall, "Oh…" She moaned in discomfort before Naruto picked his heavy backpack back up and swung it right into her back with a spin for added momentum and force, "Gah!" She shouted, spilling a bit of blood from her mouth.

For Shiratori it seemed to unfold in slow motion as Kisara's legs gave out and she fell to the floor. Kisara… lost? How much did that stupid thing weigh? It might as well have been a hammer the way he hit her.

Naruto looked down at Kisara who was trying to get up before he pressed a foot down onto her back to keep her from fighting on. Slinging his bag back onto his back like it was weightless he sighed before crying out, "Everything is a goddamn weapon! Even the thing that carries my weapons is a weapon!"

Kenichi rubbed his eyes as he'd lost track of just what had happened. Not that it had been too fast for him to keep up with, though it had been faster than he could have dealt with, but somehow he'd lost sight of Naruto who had remained in full view from his perspective the entire time, "Wait, what happened?"

"I see." Miu said, bopping her fist into her hand in understanding, "I know how it works now! I always wanted to! That move Naruto-kun used to fool Kisara, he-!" She then had her mouth muffled by Naruto speeding behind her to cover it.

Cue getting slammed onto the floor too fast to safety roll out of, "Ow…" Naruto muttered from his back, "Don't talk about my moves out loud… even if you do get it. I know it's awesome. That's why I do it."

Miu gasped and zipped her mouth closed as she helped him back up, 'It was all just a gentle coaxing. A subtle movement of his bag to take his place to save himself. The art of the substitution.' It was a simple breakdown to a complex technique. She took her eyes off of him for a quarter of a second and that was enough time.

He could and oftentimes did do this with living people that were entirely unaware, which was something far more difficult. For that it was all a matter of mysterious footwork to guide others suggestively into what had previously been his own path, and even people looking at him wouldn't recognize what was happening until he was out of the way where he could move free and unrestrained. It was one of his favorites but it required something or someone close by within reach to work.

She'd gone and thought it was all some kind of ninja hypnotism until now. How silly of her.

Naruto saw Kisara glaring up at him from her belly, and all of the fight was still in her. The spirit was willing even though the body was shot.

"Damn you." Kisara said, hissing in pain at the crushing damage Naruto had just dealt her before letting out another cough, "How'd you do that? Dodge without me even noticing that you did it?"

Naruto just clicked his tongue at her with a small smile, letting it go unanswered for the most part, "I always say it's because I'm awesome." He removed his foot from her back and let her get back up with Shiratori's help, "We done here? We're gonna miss the bus you know."

Kisara's glare dropped and she simply stared at him owlishly from Shiratori's shoulder, "You just kicked my ass and you're worried about the bus?"

A sheepish expression found its way to Naruto's face as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Well I'm not worried about it for me. I can always walk home. You can't."

"We're supposed to be enemies you know."

"Maybe, but I don't want to fight you anymore. I hate fighting people twice, let alone three times."

"How about two dozen times like with Miu-san?" Kenichi quipped dryly from over Naruto's shoulder as he and Miu came closer while Naruto went to pick up Kisara's beret from the ground, "Naruto-san, you won!"

His friend was… a really good fighter! He didn't like the sneak attacks he tended to use more often than not or the fact that he'd beaten up a girl, but that aside he'd managed to beat one of the Eight Fists of Ragnarok, and it didn't even break his arm this time to do it.

"What?" Naruto said confusedly at Kenichi's excitement as he put Kisara's hat back onto her head, unknowingly pulling his hand back before she could bite at it, "Of course I won. Why wouldn't I have won?"

"He's just never seen you in a real fight Naruto-kun." Miu said, patting Naruto on the head much to his irritated consternation, "I've never gotten to watch you either come to think of it." She had to deal with him, but she never got to watch him. It was definitely something else other than what she was used to.

Kisara just stared at the trio before gesturing with her head to get Shiratori to take her out of the arena at a different exit. She would be damned if she'd walk out the same door as someone that had just defeated her, "Why are you fighting Uzumaki?" Kisara asked, "What's the reason you're a ninja or whatever?"

"Because I've got something to prove. Because the last promise I made my parents was that I would be the best _my _way." Naruto said, placing a hand over his heart, "A Kage amongst the Kage, that'd pull it off on my terms. That's why I fight. Because they believed in me, and I know they're still watching me now." A carefree grin sprang to his face as he squinted his eyes at her, "I know. It's pretty lame right?"

The Eighth Fist of Ragnarok just tilted her beret down to shadow her eyes before turning to walk away with Shiratori, hiding her grin, "How about really damn lame? Don't think this is over Uzumaki."

They weren't really so terribly different after all. One of them had something to prove to people that weren't with him anymore, the other had something to prove to herself and to anyone else sizing her up as a fighter.

Shiratori was confused. Why was her mistress smiling? She'd just been defeated by one of the most infuriating men she figured Kisara would ever meet. So why did she seem like she enjoyed herself?

Either way, the time before the bus was set to take them all home was drawing nearer, and the trouble they'd get into for missing it wasn't worth letting the feelings from the fight linger any longer.

"What you said wasn't 'lame' Naruto-kun." Miu said quietly as they walked to the door, "I just want to let you know that. I understand." A little smile that she sent his way made him feel a bit content, but she just as quickly blew the moment with a question, "But ah, what exactly is a 'Kage' supposed to be?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and chuckled a bit, but before he could answer they reached the door leading back to the basement convention hall. They then came to a stop and stared outside at the twenty students just like them apparently standing there waiting on them, but they didn't seem like they were spoiling for a fight, "…Ragnarok?" Naruto asked rhetorically with a tilt of his head.

"I don't think so." Kenichi said. Most of these people just looked like regular guys, "But what do they want?"

"They want to see the man people that took down the Eight Fist Valkyrie of course!"

Kenichi jumped at the sudden voice from behind and only turned to see Niijima slinking about, "What are you doing here?"

"Introducing the men to their officers of course!" Niijima said, patting Kenichi on the shoulder, "Why wouldn't they want to see their brave commanders engaging in battle against the hated enemy?"

"I don't get it." Kenichi said before looking at Naruto and Miu who both shrugged in equally shared confusion, "Who are you talking about?" It had better not have been them. If there was a God then he wasn't talking about them.

He wasn't that lucky though, as Niijima threw open the doors and gestured grandly to the three first-years standing just inside, "Behold, your Assault Commander and Operations Commander; Shirahama Kenichi and Uzumaki Naruto!"

A smattering of cheers broke out amongst those present that had been underclass students just like them that had been at the career fair. Niijima's rhetoric had them in the palm of his hand and he knew it. This was just the beginning. A mastermind needed muscle around him after all.

With the upheaval of power that had been going on lately as Kisara's gang's steady grip on the school had been rocked by constantly running aground at the hands of two of the more outcast students, other students were hoping for a change. So he offered them the chance to make that change themselves.

And in turn he would be insulated by numbers in the form of bodies that wanted to fight against Ragnarok like the two kids Naruto and Kenichi were doing. But without the two aforementioned in the fold, the morale of the group wouldn't last long.

So he inducted them without telling them, simple as that.

"Kenichi-sama! Naruto-sama! How'd you defeat all of those Ragnarok members by yourselves, and Ragnarok's Valkyrie too?"

Kenichi just stared and lifted a limp finger to point at the assembled masses, "…Did you just make a gang?"

"Yes I did." Niijima said pridefully with a chuckle, "I'm very proud of myself."

"Did you use our names to pull people in?"

"Yes again. With my charisma and the backing of your names it was pretty easy to find people interested in taking Ragnarok down a peg. Especially when I told them about my good buddy Naruto's ninja tricks that he could teach."

Speaking of which, Naruto reached over his shoulder into his bag and pulled out a smoke bomb that he wordlessly held above his head amid the oohs and aahs of the gathered student body. Mentally thanking Shigure for not taking at least that away from him for the time being, Naruto dropped it to the ground, covering him and his friends in a cloud of white smoke that had Niijima coughing due to his close proximity.

When it cleared seconds later, Naruto, Miu, and Kenichi were all gone without a trace.

All of the apparent followers fell silent until all of a sudden they erupted in a roar of cheers at Naruto so suddenly disappearing right in front of them. Once again not expecting Naruto to cut out and leave so quickly, and taking Kenichi with him to boot, Niijima had to quickly come up with something to cover, "Aha, that's your Operations Commander for you! Imagine; skills like that being put to use against the enemy!"

"What a guy! Showing us what he can do so we'll have faith in them!"

"They'll never see him coming when we finally take them down!"

As the cheers continued, Niijima had to pat himself on the back for salvaging the situation, 'Damn I'm good.'

Waiting by the stairs that headed down to the convention hall, Tanimoto leaned against the banister heading down and watched all of this with an even glance before turning to go back down to the career fair with the majority of the other students. This didn't mean anything to him.

Even if Naruto was as good as advertised, even if he had the attention of the Third Fist Freya, even if Shirahama Kenichi was suddenly displaying skill that somehow came out of nowhere, it was just a matter of time.

A matter of time before _he_ got to fight. The Sixth Fist, Hermit. Odin really needed to get things into gear. Waiting on the war with YOMI to begin was working his last nerve if he was possibly thinking about slumming it by fighting two people like them.

* * *

**Yo. S'up. **

**Now, as you've probably figured by now, chakra does not exist. Ki however, does. Ki is also way more advanced of a technique in this story than chakra is in the Naruto universe. So basically supernatural shit will happen, and special 'magical' ninjutsu that you're more used to will actually occur, but not for a while. **

**Not pulling two goddamn back-to-back meteors from orbit 'supernatural' for fans of that, but stuff that humans can't do otherwise nonetheless.**

**And the Kyuubi and other things that I haven't 'addressed' from the Narutoverse like I'm some kind of fool. F'n wait. Seriously, like I'm unaware or something. I know how to make this crap fit together snugly.  
**

**I've said it before in other things I've done and been lambasted over, and I'm not mad just really disappointed about it, but I think I would have earned some goodwill by now that people would believe that I know what I'm doing.**

**Anyway, I've done my due diligence, and I'm needed elsewhere, so read on, and later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	8. To The Letter

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Someone go out and write some graffiti on the wall that says Kenchi is awesome. It's a message that needs to be spread to the world, and I'm not going to be the one to do it. I've got job interviews to do, I can't have a criminal record.

**Chapter 8: To The Letter**

* * *

Another sunrise, another peaceful morning awakening in his own bed for one Uzumaki Naruto.

Only there was something strange afoot on this day. Naruto could feel it before he even opened his eyes, but it seemed like whatever it was had been there for quite some time before he'd noticed it. Whatever it was wasn't hurting him, and it had already had plenty of time to do so, so it was allowed to continue existing in its same state. Until it was actually time for him to wake up for real it could wait.

Right on the dot, the alarm next to Naruto's head on the nightstand went off, but before his hand could reach out for it the device shut off.

Okay, that was too weird to ignore in exchange for catching his 'z's.

Opening his eyes, Naruto bore witness to the eerily calm expression of his sensei, standing crouched on his bed looking down over him. Her sheathed nodachi had been used to reach over and tap the alarm clock off without waking him as she seemed to just be staring at him.

The second Naruto's vision cleared and he realized what was going on he did the only thing that felt logical at the time, "WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

After several seconds of him shouting at the top of his lungs the door to his room burst open with Tenten leading the way in her pajamas with her hair down out of her buns, holding a handful of odd throwing knives that she planned to throw right at Shigure upon getting first sight of the strange woman.

She refrained from throwing though, as lingering behind was Shikamaru who looked inside of the doorway, saw Shigure, and then started yelling himself, "AAAAAAAHHHH!" His yell startled Tenten worse than Naruto's original one that roused her from her sleep did, "Devil woman with the sword! In the house! What the hell!?"

This was his nightmare. One of the terrible Ryouzanpaku masters in his house.

Well, it was Naruto's house, but he was staying there at least for the time being, so technically it was his house to an extent as well.

Naruto eventually stopped yelling when the logic portion of his brain caught up with his instinct and he shut himself up, "Shigure?" He asked before turning his head to look at his clock, "…It's six a.m."

Shigure kept looking down at Naruto with a slight shift of her lips into something of a frown. He still wouldn't call her sensei for whatever reason. He still did everything she told him to do when training, but while she'd never say it she was a bit bothered by him not referring to her as such.

Shikamaru then stopped yelling and looked rightfully embarrassed for suddenly losing his cool like that. But seriously, he had nightmares that started out similarly to the current real-world situation. Hopefully no one had paid attention to him, but Tenten holding onto her left ear told him that even if she wasn't saying anything she was a bit put out by the ringing in her ears.

"Who is this woman?" Tenten asked, wondering why Naruto seemed cool with the entire situation now after previously yelling his head off, "How'd she get into the house? A lot of the place is booby-trapped." Feeling a poking at her leg she looked down to see a mouse chewing on a portion of a cookie, "Oh God, you've got mice!"

"That's Shigure's pet." Naruto said in explanation, "…And probably how she figured out where all the traps were before coming in. Why are you here by the way?"

At first she didn't speak, but instead reached out and gave him several pats on the head as if he were an animal of some sort, "You're allowed to use shuriken again." She said, pointing to the stockpile she'd taken from him previously that she'd left in the corner of his room, "You know… the most important rules. Don't you?"

"Everything's a weapon."

"Do you know any more?"

"Uh…" These all had to be as obvious as the first one was, "Every weapon can be deadly." He hurriedly said, hoping that the second would be as blatantly obvious as the first. Once he got a nod he pumped his fist victoriously, "Sweet! What do I get back now?"

Shigure thought about it before jumping off of Naruto's bed back onto the floor, "You… can select this time. Look around your armory… and choose when you arrive for training this evening. I'll be there."

With that, she walked out of Naruto's room between Shikamaru and Tenten, waiting for her mouse Tochumaru to climb up onto her shoulder so that she could leave through the front door… as if that were cool after getting into the house at who knows what hour.

What an incredibly odd lady.

As the scene that started their day seemed to be over, Tenten yawned a bit and sat down on the end of Naruto's bed, "Who was that?"

"My master I guess." Naruto figured was the best way to explain the situation to his for-the-time-being roommate, "She's also the lady that's kind of the point of Shikamaru and my mission. She's got the stuff we're supposed to be stealing, but I don't know which weapon it is, or if she even keeps them at Ryouzanpaku."

"That woman was a master?" Tenten said, looking a bit bewildered, "I almost…" She was about to attack her. What horrible thing would have happened to her if Shikamaru's abruptly adding onto Naruto's yelling didn't throw her off?

"Yeah, don't ever do what you were about to do if you like those pajamas."

Shikamaru sighed and leaned against the doorframe to Naruto's room, "She's Katsujinken so she won't kill you. If she was about that she would have murdered him over and over again by now for sneaking onto their property." He said, gesturing to Naruto.

"Whatever." Naruto jumped up out of bed and did some rudimentary stretches, "It's time to use that brain of yours Shikamaru, you and Tenten." Of course he was talking about finding a way to neutralize Ragnarok with finality, "No killing though please."

"A Katsujinken ninja." Tenten said with a shake of her head, "That's kind of counterproductive don't you think?"

"I'm not Katsujinken!" Naruto shouted, stopping his morning stretches to glare at Tenten, "I just don't want to start killing a bunch of teenagers in the street. Is that so wrong?" So far nobody had tried to kill him and his, they'd just threatened to beat their brains in, "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because killing them would make it really easy to get them to leave you alone." Tenten answered, balancing a kunai by its point on her fingertip before she admitted that Naruto had something of a point in his own way, "But then again that _would_ be really stupid to do. I mean everyone would know you did it so that would make being a ninja much harder for you than it already is."

"-Because people already know you're a ninja at your school." Shikamaru followed up, rubbing it in deeper on Naruto, "Jeez Naruto. Now I'm as much of a fan of the totally platonic cohabitation as anyone else, but I'm not living here forever, and she's going to want to go outside in the daylight at some point."

"Indeed." Tenten chimed in, "Your house is nice, but only being able to go out into the backyard is getting old and it's only been two days since I've been here." Nothing personal, but she really despised being overly dependent on other people. Still, killing off kids left and right really wasn't a smart course of action at all in this scenario, "Well let's look at the bright side. You already proved you can beat some of them, so we don't have to worry about if you can do it or not."

"I can beat _all_ of them." Naruto boasted openly with a thumb pointed at his puffed out chest, "Just leave it to me. This whole thing'll be settled in no time, 'ttebayo!"

Tenten just deadpanned a stare at him before running a hand through her hair, "Yeah… you beat the Eighth Fist and hung with the Third. Let's not go overboard here buddy. Kisara wasn't supposed to be the most dangerous. The danger goes up the smaller the number, not down."

"I know that damn it!" Naruto replied, rebutting harshly out of embarrassment for whatever reason before leaving the room, "Grah! I'm taking a shower first today if you're gonna be all negative like that!"

"It's not negative, it's just being realistic!" Tenten called down the hall after him, getting a slam from the upstairs bathroom door in response, "Hehe, he forgot to train before he showered. He seems like the kind of guy that'll be pissed about that when he realizes it later."

"He also forgot that there's a shower in the first floor bathroom and a furo in the basement."

"…Hey can we really do this by ourselves? Beat Ragnarok?" It was a bit understandable that she'd feel apprehensive about their chances. Tenten had been a Valkyrie, a divisional gang member of Ragnarok, not a Fist, "It's just the three of us. If you count Naruto's friends from his school that's more, but we're not going to be working with them ourselves are we?" Even then it was still just a handful of people from what she'd heard, "Should I have stayed in, as a spy?"

Shikamaru sighed. It was way too early in the morning for him to be playing stand-up for a girl. Even so, "You said the reason you had a place to stay when we met was because of them right? Well that'd be too risky for you if we did that. Do you really believe in your subterfuge that much to get away with it when you have to spend most waking minutes around them?"

He himself was alright at it. He'd never want to put that to the test in a room full of jackals, but he felt he'd be okay. From what he knew, Naruto sucked at it. Sure, he was great at hiding things, but the way Naruto did it was by not addressing whatever the thing was to begin with and ignoring it as if he were whiting out something on a page.

That worked when you were mostly left alone, but in Tenten's circumstance she was a member of a small, rather intimately close-knit unit. When it came to outright deceiving people to their faces with words and actions, he couldn't so he left things unsaid when he could. In a situation like hers, Naruto would have been compromised.

Tenten shook her head with a frown on her face. She could do it, but she wouldn't have felt comfortable with it and it would have shown. The little jump-out she was living with them now to avoid would seem like nothing compared to what they'd do if she was caught as a double-agent and they must have known that.

The concern was appreciated and noted. They'd just met her and instead of trying to use her as a way to keep tabs on the enemy they pulled her out. Not the wisest choice, but it showed their character for better or worse.

"It's okay. We said we're in this together and we meant it." Scratching his scalp, Shikamaru continued, "Look, Naruto's stronger than me. He sounds like he's full of hot air all of the time, but if he says anything, even if it sounds like bloviating, he'd cut off his left hand to back it up before he let it be untrue. All we need is everything you already know. That's more than enough."

"But all of the Fists are stronger than me and the Fourth Fist Loki is a strategist on top of it." Tenten said in deep contemplation, "He's the best at winning without ever having to do any of the heavy lifting himself. He keeps himself away from the actual battle at all costs when he's taking it seriously, never wants to handle the dirty work himself."

"Well I can't say that'll be an option for us." Shikamaru admitted lazily, "Chances are, we're going to have to fight. We can't just send Naruto in. But here's the thing, I've heard about that guy. Naruto told me about that guy. I know a guy kind of like that."

He _was_ a guy kind of like that. And Shikamaru wasn't afraid of a guy like that. He knew how to deal with him when the time came.

"Loki's an administrator, not an operator." The unwilling ninja said, "He watches things from afar and never gets his hands dirty if he can help it. So we've got to put him in the place where he feels the least comfortable, with no other option but to do the fighting himself. It doesn't matter if he's actually really talented as a fighter, taking away his options'll make him overthink every move he makes and panic."

"Uh huh…" Tenten followed along with a nod, "But you've got to outmaneuver him first. Shikamaru, he's going to have a plan. He's going to have a plan in case the plan fails."

"I know. We've got to disrupt that. The thing is, you beat a guy like Loki by drawing him in with three things." He seemed to be barely awake as he spoke, but he had Tenten's full attention nonetheless. It was just something about how he carried himself, as if he had full confidence-, no it wasn't confidence, it was more like full understanding, in what he was saying, "Distraction, diversion, and division. Then you put him on display for the whole world to see."

"And that's how you beat him?"

"No." Shikamaru said, shaking his head much to Tenten's confusion, "For a guy like that… that's how you break him."

What about how he said all of that sent a chill down her spine? Yeah, this guy was definitely one of them, a ninja, even if he didn't want to be like he appeared to, "…You know, you're actually pretty reliable when you want to be." Tenten said with a small smile. She was starting to see how Naruto and Shikamaru's dynamic worked and they'd kept from killing each other despite being so fundamentally different, "I didn't know you were that smart."

"No, I'm not." Shikamaru replied with a bit of a glare, even though he was too lazy to hold it, "And definitely don't tell Naruto I said any of that. He'd ask me to actively do more stuff if he knew how much I actually thought about it." Naruto had an idea that Shikamaru was pretty damn intelligent, but even he had no idea just how much, and the latter liked it that way.

Actually, now that Shikamaru had time to think about what he figured they were up against when it came to Ragnarok, there was something to the point of the numbers game they'd been talking about earlier. Something very intriguing happened to Naruto yesterday, that if played straight could wind up helping them immensely when it came to how outnumbered they were.

All he had to do was convince Naruto that it was worth looking into, because it would seriously make things a whole lot easier. And hey, he could skip school today to plot and scheme as much as he needed to.

He was going to skip anyway, but now at least he could act like he had a reason for it.

XxX

(Hidden Warehouse – Ragnarok Hideout)

"You were defeated?" The focused look from behind the glasses of Ragnarok's First Fist Odin was one more of interest than of anger at being told this news; that his newest Fist had been overcome in combat, "By Uzumaki… or Shirahama?"

"Uzumaki." Kisara groused outright. It wouldn't do to try and cover it up if he was asking about it. If he didn't believe what she was saying he'd find out somehow anyway, "I don't know much of what Shirahama can do outside of what Shiratori told me from when they fought. She can't point out what kind of style he actually uses… it's like a bunch of them at once."

"Oh really?" Color him intrigued, "Go on."

"I don't know exactly how good he is, but Uzumaki… he's… he's." It really hurt to suck it up and admit as much, but she'd already acknowledged defeat and interest of her own in his moves, so with a sigh she had to finish her thought, "…He's the real deal. I still don't know about all of that ninja crap, but whatever he does he's good enough at it to beat me head up."

She had no excuses. The first time she couldn't put him down she complained that there were too many of her own gang members around to properly fight him despite the fact that he seemed to be the only one that really cared about that at the time, but the second bout was clear. He'd won handily. She didn't even remember landing a single clean blow on him either.

He fought her without pitying her like a sexist or devaluing her skills as a fighter just because she was a woman. He took it gravely serious from start to finish and did his due diligence in getting the job done.

Uzumaki Naruto was still cockier than shit, but she had a feeling that even if she'd beaten him on that occasion, if she had done it but left him well enough to come back later for another try he'd have taken it and still been super-confident in his abilities, because it wasn't arrogance.

It wasn't the kind of self-belief you developed by being told by others that you were good, it was the kind of self-belief you developed when there was no one to tell you so, no positive reinforcement whatsoever. It was the kind of confidence that you had to give yourself only by shoving it down your own throat every day when you woke up and looked in the mirror in the morning.

It was more determination than confidence really. When misinterpreted the two had many crossover points, but she could see where the difference lied with Naruto.

"Valkyrie."

Odin's voice roused her from her thoughts, and thank goodness that he did. There were more important things for her to think about than some stupid guy she was going to find a way to defeat later, "Yeah? What's wrong?"

"I wonder, should I extend the olive branch to these would-be enemies of ours."

"I already tried asking Uzumaki. He turned me down." She didn't want that loudmouth in her gang anyway, she already had one in Koga. But at least unlike Koga, Naruto would have actually been useful, "He's not into what we're about or whatever he was complaining about back then."

"Did you ask him to join Ragnarok in general, or just your gang?"

"Why would I ask that grinning jackass to join Ragnarok outside of my jurisdiction? Like he's better than me."

"Apparently he is." Odin said with a small smile that got Kisara to growl under her breath, "But I understand why you did what you did at the time." A Fist of Ragnarok would never admit to being on someone else's level outside of their own ranks unless it was proven in battle, "I'll tell you what. I won't have you punished for losing."

Really? That was a surprise. All this time she'd been dreading getting in trouble for not having her district of the town cleared out of any and all opposition to Ragnarok's influence by now. In this case she'd actually lost a fight, but wasn't going to receive consequences for it?

"Why?" Kisara had been expecting something like being replaced, but then again it wasn't like anyone else in Ragnarok was good enough for her spot.

"Since you're the only person that knows how to find him in the slightest, I want you to give him a message." Odin said, walking off while shoving his hands into the pockets of his white suit, "The First Fist wishes for a summit. No fighting, just a venue to talk."

Loki of all people couldn't corner and finish Shirahama Kenichi. Freya and the entirety of the Valkyries couldn't corner and finish Uzumaki Naruto. The latter had just gotten through defeating the most recent inductee into the Fists in the girl right in front of him.

Once again, to destroy potential resources like them seemed like such a waste.

XxX

(Later That Day – Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Shigure's Room)

"I don't think I'm ever gonna get over how much stuff is in here." Naruto said as he sat down on the floor and looked around to take it all in once again, "How long did it take to learn how to use all of this stuff the right way?" He asked before switching his question, "…How old are you?"

Once again, in what seemed to be a normal occurrence whenever Naruto tried to push her buttons in order to get some kind of outburst out of her, she just stared at him until he felt uncomfortable for ever bringing it up. After hearing him mumble a 'nevermind' she turned her back to him and looked around, "You've had all day so choose… what you'd like to learn about."

Naruto's eyes craned to the ceiling and stared for a moment, "Part of me really wants to use that Zanbatou near the ceiling." Final Fantasy VII buster sword style, "…But, I still want the manriki-gusari. Give me my chain back."

"Why are you so set on using that weapon?" Shigure slowly asked curiously, "And if you want to be taught to use a chain weapon, why not choose the kusarigama?" She so badly wanted to teach him how to use something sharp.

"'Cuz I can't pull out a sickle in school." Naruto said, making the weapons master feel a bit embarrassed, not that it showed on her face one bit. Sure, he carried shuriken and kunai when he could, but he never pulled them out in the halls. He wanted to, but now he'd be the first suspect if there were nicks in the walls or lockers, and he didn't need that crap, "Besides, one of the things I remember about my mom is that she was _really_ good with chain weapons."

Being that he was so small when he'd left home, he didn't have a ton of full, clear memories about what his parents were like, but the ones that he did have were strong.

"Very well." Shigure said, handing Naruto his choice of combat tool that she'd kept confiscated from him since they'd begun training, "I'll teach you how to use this first if you really want me to. I will teach you how to use both the manriki-gusari and the kusarigama… for different situations."

She did ask him to pick, but she was a little put down that he didn't choose anything with a blade first. He wouldn't have a choice in this one though, he'd be learning how to use both even if he wound up focusing more on the blade-less weapon for starters (which was surprisingly responsible for someone like him).

She wanted to teach someone how to wield dangerous weaponry efficiently damn it! And from the look of surprise on his face he apparently never expected her to actually be willing to double up on what she was teaching him. Clearly he was interested, and thus she was pleased.

So up and out of the room they went, with Naruto reveling in the fact that Shigure's own impatience in wanting to get to teaching him the good stuff wound up with him getting his direct combat weapon of choice back as well as the deadly-enhanced version with a sickle on the end.

He hadn't planned it like that at all, thinking that she'd probably commend him for being 'responsible' for not picking that one first. Instead she was bummed that he hadn't picked it over the supposedly nonlethal version.

And now they were both going to go train with dangerous tools, and both were almost just as excited about it as the other. That would change for one of them soon enough when the training actually started, but for now it was a nice little walk outside to get across the yard to the actual dojo building where it would all commence.

Once again, something that should have been and was probably about to be a sensei/student bonding moment was about to be ruined when once they entered and saw Kenichi already training with Ma Kensei on the Chinese Kenpo aspect of his fighting, Naruto found his progression halted when he was randomly plucked up by his backpack and held up face-to-face with Apachai, "…What?"

Even though by now he knew that the massive Thai man was as docile as they came most of the time, he couldn't help but remember the extremely wicked scar that still existed on his body from the first time they'd met. So instead of barking the question at him as he was wont to do due to his irritation at being lifted off of the ground like a small rodent by the scruff of its neck, he refrained from doing anything that would overly excite him.

"Apa, Apachai wants to know why Naruto doesn't call Shigure master."

Though she didn't turn back around or say a word, Shigure did stop and listen intently to whatever answer Naruto would give Apachai to get him to put him down. She was very curious about this, but never asked him in the week or so that she had been working with him. She knew that he knew better, but that he simply chose not to refer to her as –sensei for whatever reason, no matter if it seemed disrespectful or not.

Looking around, Naruto noticed that he had more than just Apachai's attention, noting that Kensei wanted to hear his answer to the point that he even allowed Kenichi to stop his regimen without tyrannically forcing him back to work so that he could take it in as well.

Feeling put on the spot, Naruto sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and grinned at them all with squinted eyes, "Well I can't. It's not right."

"What do you mean by not right?" Kensei asked, shuffling over while hiding his hands in the long sleeves of his Chinese shirt, "It's a show of respect and trust to refer to your teacher as such you know."

"Yeah I know, she asked me to train with her." Naruto said with a bit of a twitching eye, maintained while still squinting somehow, "But the reason is because I can't do it and betray her trust like that."

"Betray her trust?" Kenichi said in confusion before remembering what Naruto was talking about, "Oh! Wait, are you still going to do that? Steal from Ryouzanpaku?"

"Yeah. One day soon I'm gonna find what I'm looking for here, and I'm gonna take it to finish my mission." Naruto said with a bit of a fire in his eyes as he reminded himself of his overreaching goal, "But I'm still grateful. You don't know how much."

Because she was taking a chance on him. Because for once in his life someone wanted to help him because he was him. Back at the Homeland, he was only taught because he had to be. He was a face in a crowd and the only thing that mattered was that he developed well enough to become a working cog in the machine. He understood and accepted it, but it wound up being so cold, and he couldn't ever truly adjust to it. He couldn't become a robot, because he made a promise to never let them change who he was.

Shigure wanted to help. He had nothing to give in return other than a bit of tuition pay each month for the training, which really wasn't that much in the grand scheme of things.

"So I can't do it; call her –sensei." Naruto said, shaking his head with a frown, "Because that'd be betraying her when I finally do get what I want. At least this way... at least like this I'm letting you all know what the score is in advance right?"

He had a rather abnormal sense of honor that could be confusing, and a rather strange approach to being a ninja. He had a clearly established line, and absolutely he'd dance all over it, but he wouldn't cross it. He'd steal from them because it was his apparent mission, but he'd tell them he was going to do it because he had involuntarily gotten friends that were close to the dojo. He would gleefully hit an opponent from behind if he was given the opening to do so, even against Kenichi and Miu in spars, but he wouldn't cripple an actual adversary against him just because he could.

He wouldn't lie and say that he wasn't going to do his job even if they would believe him, even if it would give him an advantage. Outright deception to someone offering and giving him help was clearly stepping over his line. It was betrayal to him, and to a Konoha ninja, betrayal was the absolute worst crime that existed.

Granted that teaching was taught solely with the intention to instill in the children that only the overall clan of Konoha was never to be betrayed, but Naruto took that as any friend. Which was why he told them anytime they would listen that one day he was going to get what he was after, warning them outright what he was going to eventually do.

"Can you put me down now?" Naruto asked after no one had said anything for a few moments, "These are one of my school clothes sets." He didn't get what was so strange about what he'd said. He figured that not calling her –sensei when he was knowingly going to eventually rip her off _was_ respectful.

The hulking Apachai set Naruto back down on the ground, and eager to put that entire awkward episode behind them all, Naruto started to fish through his heavy backpack for a change of clothes to train in. Before he could walk off somewhere to do so, Shigure set a hand on his head, confusing him.

Her index finger then pressed off of the center of his goggles and pushed his head back a bit, "…Hard-headed, but it makes you… who you are I guess." With that she simply walked away and sat down, waiting on Naruto to go change and return.

Still totally confused, Naruto just readjusted the eyewear on his forehead and went off to go put on some active clothes he could actually live with getting torn up in training.

Kensei just grinned underneath the brim of his cap and decided to get back to work, directing Kenichi to get back to the task of smoothly going through the motions of his techniques while having to shift his body position around his master's (drastically slowed) attacks, "I don't think I've seen Shigure-don so lively since she's been here. Who would think that it would be someone like Naruto to bring it out of her? They're complete opposites."

'Lively?' Kenichi thought to himself before focusing back up, lest he wind up catching a nerfed blow from Kensei that would still probably put him out for fifteen minutes minimum if it landed, 'That's lively?' She barely said anything and then went to sit off in the far end of the room.

XxX

(Three Days Later – Kouryo High School)

For Naruto, Cross-country club was normally so easy it was boring. All he did was stretch and run. In the first week he wound up blowing out the aces of the club, but it wasn't because he was trying to be a jerk, he was really trying to tire himself out for real and push his cardiovascular conditioning.

…It was just that his endurance was already so well-developed that he had to go way past what anyone else was already doing to tire himself out. There were a few of them that could do five-minute mile runs, and he made them feel inadequate. The loud kid that no one had thought was much of an athlete or anything at all until that dumb ninja rumor was somehow proven true.

Of course everyone got over it, and Naruto stopped feeling so awkward about it when everybody realized that eventually they'd be running meets. And they would always have an ace-in-the-hole if they wanted it, since Naruto really only wanted to join for the training, not for the accolades, thus he would sit out running unless they needed him to.

The least he could do for stealing their shine was refrain from stealing their scholarships… at least for this season. For the following year's track & field and cross-country all bets were off because he needed to get into a university too, and he damn sure wasn't going to get in for scholastic achievement.

Still, he hated running, and he had to weigh himself down to get any effect at all. He had to argue with the coach to get the man to let him wear his bag at practice, and then he still had to carry more in addition to it to get any sort of noticeable drag.

'I feel like Kenichi only no one's whipping me.' Naruto thought to himself as he ran laps around the school at the start of practice, pulling a gigantic super-single tractor tire tied to his back to significantly slow him down and make him work. He hated running for practice. It was so boring, 'Whatever. Handle it here so you can just work on the good stuff with Shigure later.'

Things could have been even more boring though, so the bright side had to be looked for. Running all over the place at least gave Naruto the chance to run past the Gardening Club greenhouse where he could easily yell greetings to his friend, and by the room used for the Gymnastics Club, but he couldn't really drag a gigantic tire in there to say hello to Miu sometimes.

He'd actually tried but had forgotten to untie himself before going in, so he wound up getting stuck at the door with a huge tire behind him. It was probably best to give that a few more weeks to let people forget about that before he ventured that way again.

"Yo! Long time no see!"

Turning to his right, Naruto saw the white hair in a ponytail and the easygoing grin of Takeda Ikki, dressed in workout clothes and running right alongside him, pumping his arms out in jabs with every few steps, "Takeda! Yeah, definitely 'ttebayo! How's that left arm doing?"

Even if they'd fought before, Takeda helped Kenichi out in a pinch, and besides all of that the guy was just so laidback all of the time that it was hard to not think he was totally cool.

"Good enough to put me at the top of the school's Boxing Club." Takeda boasted casually before clapping Naruto on the back, "Just doing some roadwork right now. But man, it's so good to be able to get back in the ring again! You don't even know how grateful I am to you Ryouzanpaku folks. Ukita's even made amends for what he used to do and gotten back into actual Judo."

Naruto snickered and shrugged, "I don't get it, but if you want to thank me for kicking your ass I'll take it. And I ain't Ryouzanpaku either, but I'll tell them later."

"Little smartass." Takeda jested, flicking his ultra-quick left out at Naruto in a faux-jab as they kept running, "By the way, there's some rumblings going around that you beat Nanjou Kisara during the underclass career fair trip. That's mighty impressive."

"Nah, really?" Let it be known that Naruto loved being praised by others for the things that he did. Lack of positive reinforcement by peers or positive-influence adults for the better part of the decade either kills your self-esteem or forces you to build it up so high yourself that it borders on superciliousness. It was quite clear that with Naruto it was the latter, "Go on, tell me more."

"I didn't know you were starting your own group either."

Hold up. Literally, because Naruto tripped over his own feet and got a face full of dirt and grass before instantly hopping back up as if he'd never done it, "Say what now?"

Was it really getting that much buzz that fast? And people were really taking it that seriously? Apparently since Niijima had finally been proven correct (somewhat) about Naruto's ninja background that gave him a golden ticket of sorts when it came to his rumors.

"Yeah, that didn't sound like something you'd do, but that's the word." Takeda said, laughing to himself due to the dirt marks and the three ants stuck to Naruto's face, "They're usually around that Niijima guy. But they say that you and Kenichi are never around because he's training with devastating masters, and you're keeping your mystique as the shinobi."

Wiping his face with one hand, pasted a bit of a grimace on his face when he remembered what Shikamaru asked him to do if they were really going to take the fight to Ragnarok in a hurry, "…Show me where."

XxX

(Kouryou High School – 3rd Floor Physics Lab)

"This is going to be the start of an empire Kenichi old boy, mark my words."

"Niijima, what the hell are you talking about?" Kenichi asked as he stood in disbelief. Apparently the several others outside of the room standing guard or something were for some reason completely loyal to Niijima as the man in charge, and why he couldn't understand, "What empire?"

"The one we'll build together from the ground up." Niijima said with a devious smirk, "Look, you've proven that you're not a perennial loser the way everyone always said you were. I mean you're actually finding ways to take on Ragnarok and win!"

"Not by choice!" Not by _his_ choice. Naruto on the other hand was just fine with taking the fight right to them, and it was only deterrence from him and Miu that kept him from hastily going on a straightforward crusade to their doorstep, "You're just going to make things worse!"

"How much worse could this possibly make things?" Niijima deadpanned earnestly. Seriously, he had a point. They had already pissed off multiple members of Ragnarok's Eight Fists, and actually defeated one. There wasn't really any going back now, "At worst, this'll at least give you some extra muscle to turn the tide of things around! Or do you want guys like Loki to try getting at you with your sister around again?"

Ooh, cheap shot. And it was one that resonated. Honoka didn't need to be exposed to dangerous things like that what had happened. Even if she did find it a bit fun to hang around the dojo with Apachai, it was a different matter when he found out how scared she'd been after he'd been defeated by Loki and heavily injured.

If she hadn't found Naruto, or if Naruto hadn't been so ready for action when she did find him, things could have gone worse than they did that day. And Takeda _did_ really save his ass aside from that.

But still… it wasn't his kind of thing.

A few loud cheers came from outside before the door to the lab was kicked in by Naruto who was being trailed by an amused-looking Takeda… and a huge tractor tire tied to the former's back, "Niijima. You can keep the… whatever you're calling this group of guys."

"You see! Naruto's on board!" Niijima shouted, tongue forking out of his mouth as he stood on his chair and pointed at the blond ninja until he had a cell phone tossed at him that he had to catch, "What's this?"

"Meet someone new." Naruto said as he stayed at the doorway.

While Niijima began talking to whomever it was on Naruto's phone that he was asked to speak to, Kenichi went over to Naruto whose foot was tapping impatiently and irritably on the floor for some reason, "Naruto-san, why are you and Takeda-senpai here?"

"Uh, something happened that you need to hear about."

_(Flashback – On the Way to the Physics Lab)_

"_You should really untie yourself from that thing and take it back outside." Takeda said as Naruto rolled the tractor wheel through the hall door that was being held open for him, "This doesn't seem smart."_

"_I'm not letting somebody steal my tire!" Naruto exclaimed, as if someone would actually take his stupid tire away from him, "This is the only one that groundskeepers let me take to use. They don't have any spares."_

_Takeda just decided to go with the flow in the end. If something went wrong, hey it wasn't his fault. Besides, most of the stricter teachers that would call Naruto out on it were gone and the only ones left were the ones in charge of club activities, so it was probably going to be fine._

"_Oh God, are you really dragging a tire around with you?"_

_Upon hearing that voice come from an empty classroom, both Naruto and Takeda backtracked and saw Kisara sitting around on one of the desks, this time without her entire posse in tow. Only Shiratori._

_After catching sight of Naruto and Takeda she jumped off of her temporary seat and walked over to them, with Takeda gearing up for a fight of sorts, "Calm down, I'm not going to kick your asses today. But I have been looking for you Uzumaki. For a few days. I figured knowing you were in cross-country would make you easier to find!"_

"_Well the entire point of cross-country is running all over the place." Which was perfect for avoiding trouble, a second benefit to the club. He made up his own routes to run so even if someone figured out his route one day he never did the same one two days in a row. It explained how it was so hard to find him when he really wasn't hiding or sneaking around school any longer to avoid Ragnarok, "So what's up?"_

"_Odin wants a sit-down."_

_Takeda gaped in shock and awe while Naruto just stared flatly, "…Which one's that again?" The latter asked._

"_The First Fist you ass! Stop eating paint chips and get your shit together!" She seriously lost to this rube? Kisara just couldn't believe it sometimes._

"_Well I'm sorry! All these nicknames and numbers, I can't keep it straight!" It wasn't like Naruto had ever met him either, so what was she getting all bent out of shape about?_

_Kisara looked about ready to initiate round three with Naruto, and he looked fully prepared to reciprocate in kind despite mentioning previously that he really didn't want to dance for a third time. At the last second though, she scoffed and pulled out a folded paper that she handed to Naruto, "Tch. Here. Take this. It's the time and place for the meet and what the conditions to it are supposed to be."_

"_Okay, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but why the hell would I go to this thing?" Naruto asked as he looked at the folded paper in his hand with a raised brow, "If it's not a trap I'll eat my goggles."_

"_You don't have to go alone." Kisara said, holding her beret down to shadow her eyes, "It's not just for you. It's for everyone like you that Ragnarok is against right now. Takeda, Ukita, the Shirahama kid, whatever. I won't be there anyway and this wasn't my idea, so I really don't care what you do with it."_

_She moved right past them without incident and went along her own business, leaving Naruto to watch her depart down the hall and Takeda to gawk at what had just happened, taking the paper from Naruto's hand to open it up and read it, "Naruto do you have any idea how legit this is?" He asked, getting no response, "Naruto? Naruto!"_

"_Huh?" Eyes departing from Kisara's fine retreating backside, Naruto paid Takeda attention once more, "What? What's up?"_

_Really? He felt totally comfortable ogling a woman that had tried to cave his head in not too long ago? Alright, whatever floated his boat was just fine with Takeda, "I thought this could have been a trap for the deserter's penalty that Ukita and I owe, but this is… really legit."_

"_How legit?" Naruto asked, moving next to the boxer to see what he was looking at._

"_Too legit."_

"…_Too legit to quit?"_

"_If you're not going to do the dance that goes with that song stop it." Takeda said, "Because if you do it I'll do it, and if someone sees it we're both screwed."_

"_Sorry." Naruto said as he had to concede that everything seemed absolutely official and straight-up, as if they were two actual warring factions instead of just a bunch of kids with above-average fighting ability, "But man. Should we go?"_

_A big part of Takeda was dreading his deserter's penalty, but it was scary just how curious he really was as to what would happen if this was really real, "So you're including me in this now?" The hard-punching second-year student asked before chuckling, "Just kidding. But it does seem like a trap."_

"_I still want to go though." Apparently Naruto was 'horror movie curious' as well, and he knew that he knew better, "But I can't… maybe." With that, he pulled out his cell phone and quick-dialed one of his contacts much to Takeda's confusion, "…Hey Shikamaru. Alright, hear me out because I'm about to say something that'll probably piss you off."_

(End Flashback)

XxX

(One Hour Later – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Naruto stood on the top of a single wooden post hammered into the ground that was seven feet tall with only enough space on it for both of his feet to barely fit. In his hand he was spinning the chain weapon of the weighted manriki-gusari and glaring hatefully at Shigure from behind his goggles. He'd gotten better with starting up the motion of the swinging the chain, able to get it going quickly with one circular motion of his wrist.

Shigure had clearly worked with him to the extent where she'd cleaned up his basics with the weapon, as it only took the slightest of finger and wrist movements to keep it moving blurrily above his head or by his side, wherever he chose to hold the business end of the chain. Kenichi could see the clear difference from just three days ago when he'd seen Shigure fix him up from how he'd been using it before.

The even-tempered female weapons specialist was holding onto a rather large and filled loose sack with her pet mouse on her shoulder observing the whole thing up close. Reaching into the bag she pulled out a blank CD that glowed in the sunlight ominously.

Sitting off to the side a very safe distance away on the grass on a picnic blanket were the rest of the Ryouzanpaku masters as well as Kenichi and Miu, the latter of whom was serving the masters snacks as if they were day spectators to some outdoor gathering.

"Taking any bets?" Kensei whispered to Sakaki behind Akisame as the burly, brutish Karate master took a large swig from a bottle of sake, "On when or if she kills him during this exercise or not?"

"Sure." Sakaki said, wiping his mouth before making his wager, "How about 4800 yen if she takes off a hand, 2500 for cutting him deep enough to need a transfusion-."

"How much does no lasting damage pay?" Akisame asked without even turning his head to the conversation going on literally right behind his back.

"55000."

"Eh. Sounds fair enough." Akisame replied calmly, "Put me down for that one. I'll consider myself a risk-taker today."

"Should we make a chart for each level of bodily damage he takes?" Kensei asked as he stroked his mustache in thought, "Just to keep things more on-the-level. It would make betting on his injuries more orderly."

Not seeming to care at all about the value of the sixteen-year old life on the post before them, Apachai gleefully spoke up, "Apa, what about if Naruto dies?"

"Death pays out 10000 even."

Kenichi didn't know what to make of all of this. Apparently Shigure leaving Naruto reasonably unscathed during this exercise was less likely and paid out more than it would have if she went ahead and accidentally mutilated or killed him.

Of course he then remembered where he was, who he was talking about, and his own short brush about learning how to handle an armed opponent with her and realized that it was sort of appropriate. It was actually _very _appropriate.

Eventually the very low sums of money being thrown around in case of his theoretical maiming grew to be too much for the hothead that all of this was for, "Is that all my life is worth to you bastards!?" Naruto snapped at them all, as he could clearly hear every word that they'd been saying, "10000 yen? 10000 yen won't even buy this place groceries for the week!"

"If you don't stop yelling at all of us about what your life is worth to you…" Hayato said as Miu finished providing the others with snacks and sat down on his right between him and Kenichi, "…And start focusing on the training, you'll regret it Naruto-kun."

Right. The old man might have pissed him off more than any other master at Ryouzanpaku, aside from Sakaki Shio of course, but he was absolutely dead-on. The game face needed to be present for this one or it would probably get cut off. And with that, Naruto stared her down, letting her know he was just about ready to do this.

"Good luck Naruto-kun!" Miu cheered for his sake despite the fact that she had her own misgivings about the whole thing. Nothing about this screamed good fortune for her fellow yellow-hair, "Remember to turn to the right if you have to take one in a vital!"

The staredown wasn't much of one because with a subtle flick of her wrist Shigure pitched a blank CD at Naruto's head almost too fast for him to see before he managed to lean his head out of the way at the last second. The disk, which was completely unsharpened by the way, continued on until it reached the treeline by one of the outer walls of the dojo and sheared the top leaves off of the plant.

Kenichi let out a gulp of doom for his friend, who hadn't even turned his back to see what one blunt CD did to wood when thrown by Kousaka Shigure. At least it explained why the goggles were for once appropriate entirely for safety purposes, because he knew. It probably wouldn't have surprised him too much if he'd looked anyway.

Nodding to herself in satisfaction at his initial performance, she grabbed several more and rapidly hurled them out at Naruto who did his best to remain up on the pole while avoiding them and blocking what he could with the chain itself. Without warning she threw one directly overhead and Naruto without missing a beat let one of the lengthy weighted ends of the weapon fly up and with the speed of as if he'd been merely punching something directly in front of him he smashed it out of the air.

"Wow." Kenichi said, having never seen someone his age actually use a real weapon like that before. He'd seen punks pull pocketknives on him and he'd heard of the Valkyries, but according to Naruto they weren't that exceptional with weapons.

Shigure gave three dull claps before a bit of a gleam came to her eye, "Good… now faster." And with that, she started picking up the pace of throwing the thin disks at Naruto who was bending his body out of the way of them in odd ways when he couldn't find it in him to block them with enough accuracy, "Do not leave the post under any circumstances."

"I know the rules!" Naruto shouted back as he could swear he felt the tempo of the practice increasing. One of the CDs got past his defense and unable to dodge it well enough it cut the side of his neck and drew blood, "Oi!"

"Focus." Shigure chided as she continued hurling the disks, now beginning to move around Naruto's body to force him into at least a two-dimensional form of defense, "Lose your concentration for a moment with dangerous weaponry and it will cost you your life."

"How many CDs are in that bag?" Naruto asked as he continued to dodge before jumping off of the post straight up to simultaneously dodge a few throws and kick one out of the air that he was supposed to attack. Why was she throwing CDs of all things? Maybe she just liked their flight pattern?

"A few hundred. Maybe more than a thousand. They are… cheap nowadays." A sharp glint came to her eye when she got serious and threw one that hit Naruto dead-center in the chest and knocked him not only off the post, but sent him flying fifteen yards back before landing on the ground where he came to a stop, "I thought you knew the rules."

"Center shot! 2000 yen payout already!" Sakaki barked victoriously as he reached over and gave Kenichi several hard pats on the back, "That's the secret to gambling Kenichi, always bet on more than one outcome to cover your losses if you're going for the big one!"

Miu just shook her head in abhorrence to Sakaki's reaction while Kenichi just gaped at one of his masters, "I really don't see how 2000 yen could get you excited about watching Naruto-kun get cut up."

"OWWWW!" Naruto shouted, sitting up to reveal a CD sticking out of his chest. He tried to ignore Kenichi's rather girlish scream at the sight (as did everyone else) in exchange for fiddling around with it, "Oh man! Am I dead? I'm dead right!? What the hell!? I was following the rules!"

Shigure shook her head and walked over to Naruto who was poking at the CD still embedded in his torso like a stuck saw blade, "You broke the rules. One of them anyway." She tapped at his legs for explanation, "One anchor point has to remain on the post at all times. No jumping."

A leg, a foot, a hand, an elbow, something as long as he was never completely off of the damn thing. He was allowed one for benefit of the doubt purposes, but when he did it again he had to be punished.

Seeing Shigure reach out to pull on the CD, Naruto's eyes went wide, "No-no-no-no-no-no-n-! Fuck!" He yelled when she literally pulled him back to his feet with the object sticking out of him before it finally came out, "Why was that so deep?" He asked as he looked at the nifty new cut he had in his shirt and chest that was now bleeding liberally.

"It wasn't that deep." Shigure said, looking at the blood on the device. Her throw was perfect and cut him evenly. The wound was light enough where it wasn't going to do anything but bleed, and it was enough of a punishment for screwing up that he'd learn his lessons hard enough without really tearing him apart, 'Your wound somehow started congealing around the edges in only two minutes.'

Which didn't make any sense. In the past he'd gotten up and walked home from things that would have put others away for weeks at a time. He had healed from a broken arm far too quickly, even with Akisame's methods to speed up the recovery of his broken bone, and now this right before her eyes. There was something strange about Naruto and the ki around his injury. It was faint, but it was there. She was close enough to feel it. This boy couldn't use his ki yet so it wasn't a conscious thing.

"Alright, let's try that again." Naruto said, stomping back to the post before jumping back onto it to ready his weapon once again, "Come on, let's go."

"Are you insane?" Kenichi asked Naruto from where he and the others were sitting, "You want to go again? What's wrong with you?"

"I can go longer than three f'n minutes without getting off of this post!" Naruto yelled right back to him before locking his eyes back onto Shigure, "Start throwing the stupid things and I'll stop every single one!"

Shigure nodded and started off at the same pace that she did originally, only for Naruto to dodge each one and break the one that she threw up for him to take advantage of smoothly, "Faster." With that she began to pick up the intensity again just like before, only this time Naruto stayed rooted to the post.

"Why is Shigure-san making Naruto do this?" Miu asked her grandfather after they'd been at it for a few minutes without stopping. It seemed counteractive to everything that Naruto had shown himself to be beforehand, "In an actual fight Naruto-kun isn't going to duck and sway or block attacks, he's going to use his feet to keep away and then rush back in for a counterattack."

"And what will happen when he faces someone that he can't outpace?" Hayato asked rhetorically, "The method of outmaneuvering his enemies is only an advantage to him as long as he is quicker than anyone he fights. What will he do when speed isn't on his side, or when attacking even with all of that speed is worthless to him?"

As he spoke, he pointed out what Shigure's instructions were forcing Naruto to do. She wasn't teaching him her more formal way to dodge or slip attacks. Though this was how Shigure trained, she hadn't taught Naruto her method of motionless evasion first, she was taking what he already knew and making him evolve in a way he hadn't thought of doing before.

"That boy… even if Shigure taught him every single motion she could, he wouldn't learn them perfectly even if he repeated them all for days at a time." Akisame said, speaking more to Kenichi now than to anyone else, "Kenichi learns the full motion of whatever we teach to the letter, because he has to commit everything to memory perfectly, almost to a point of direct imitation. On the other hand, Naruto can't do that. He bastardizes whatever is taught to him and adjusts it to his liking just to feel comfortable enough to use a technique."

"That can't be true." To Kenichi that sounded extremely harsh, and here he thought that they were blunt with him when they told him that he sucked, "I've seen Naruto-san use real techniques."

"Perhaps I misworded things." Akisame said, thinking of a better way to explain, "You're right, he's fully capable of learning techniques, but he immediately personalizes whatever he's taught in such a manner that a stricter teacher would deem the moves he makes as incorrect. It's uncanny really. I've learned from watching him spar with you and Miu, I'm certain that he wasn't taught to move the way he does, not entirely."

Chances were, Naruto gave whoever trained him initially fits to near ulcer-forming levels. He probably wasn't even aware that he was doing it. But since the concept of ninjutsu was such a versatile, personalized discipline of fighting it was just the kind of mindset he needed to innovate one day when he truly grew into his own.

Shigure realized that when she started training him. She wasn't teaching him the Kousaka style of weapons combat, she was instructing him on how to operate the weapons the way that _he_ was supposed to.

"So it's not a bad thing?" Miu asked curiously. Even having studied martial arts all her life she didn't get how they weren't deriding Naruto for this if it was all true, "But we're taught how to do things a certain way for a reason."

"Ninjutsu is a styleless style, or it is in theory." Hayato explained, having actually tangled with a few in the past during his long, long life, "When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning there is simplicity. It is a very difficult model to understand, let alone master, which is why there are no modern equivalents that anyone would consider real ninjutsu." None that were common knowledge anyway.

'That's why he said that he was taught when he was so young.' Miu figured, 'He said that even if he wanted to teach others, he couldn't because they're too old to learn.'

They had gone again four or five times over the course of nearly thirty minutes with Naruto eventually losing his footing and having to start over again, but only now since it was deemed that he was used to the process Shigure forewent warming him up with the slower stuff and got right to the serious work.

By now, Shigure's tempo had grown too frantic for Naruto to keep up with all of it and he was being nicked up all over his arms and legs, cheeks as well. She had long since stopped warning him when she started to speed up, but he was still able to avoid Shigure knocking him off the post for the time being, even as she was moving all around him trying to make him work harder and harder.

The cuts started to pile up on his body until Shigure decided to throw him a curve and hurled multiple CDs at once, aiming solely for his lower body, 'You shouldn't have the experience or the reflexes to stop all of these, so what will you do?'

Naruto realized this in a split-second and surprised many of them by sitting down on the post and covering up as best he could, bracing himself for the CDs that cut his arms and legs. For someone that was 'dodge first' in his mindset, this was a very surprising course of action to take.

Shigure just stared at him until Naruto lowered his arms and looked at her determinedly, breathing heavily due to the pain from all of the wounds and the effort he'd been exerting to try and keep up with the pace she'd set for around half an hour straight, "You were… half-right in what you did. But now-." She flicked out one more CD that caught him clean and knocked him down unceremoniously, "-You can no longer protect yourself from that position."

"Naruto-san!" The limp arcing of Naruto's body before he hit the ground was extremely scary to watch, especially when he didn't immediately get back up or respond.

Akisame had originally been out there to see how Shigure took to teaching Naruto and putting him through his paces firsthand. He had to say that while she was rough in her approach, she certainly had a way of getting her point across, even when she didn't lecture with her every move the way most of the other masters did. That was perfect for someone like Naruto that learned by action rather than by explanation.

After about two minutes of hearing the boy on the grass breathe heavily through his nose as no one seemed to even move to help, Naruto's body seemed to undergo a reboot as he started slowly writhing on the grass, quietly grunting in pain or discomfort after Tochumaru started poking at his face to try and rouse him.

Eventually, Naruto got back up to his feet entirely, swaying in place before he steadied himself and shook his spiky yellow head to regain his bearings, "One more time." Shigure shook her head in the negative at that request, "Why not?"

"Time to move on to technique training." She said, slinging the still quite filled bag over her back as she headed back into the dojo building, "For now get your breath back and rest for a few moments, we'll do this again tomorrow as a regular daily exercise for you." Before she got inside though, she turned around to face him again, "…Clean up this mess before you come back in."

With the show seemingly over, all of the masters got up and went off to see to their own business while Naruto grumbled to himself and went to fetch something to begin getting the pieces of CD out of the grass. Body sore and littered with varying degrees of cuts, Naruto was soon joined in his task to clean up by Kenichi and Miu, "What are you guys doing?"

"I don't know what to say about that." Kenichi said with a bit of an impressed sheepish chuckle, "You kept getting up from all of that, even when you weren't doing that well. She cut you all over."

"What are you talking about?" A confused Naruto asked, "I thought I did alright. I never did that before." He then noticed Kenichi paying attention to all of his cuts instead of to what he was saying, "Oh! Those! No, those are just when I couldn't dodge any wider for some of them. If I'd really messed up with any of those they'd have knocked me off every time."

Shigure's aim was impeccable though, to intentionally give him only that much room to maneuver and not a centimeter more or less. Tenten said she was good with throwing things, so maybe he could practice at home sometime? It wouldn't be as fast-paced or as complete as working with Shigure, but it would be something.

"So you were _supposed_ to get cut up like that?" That was a rather… brutal outlook on productive training from Kenichi's perspective. His own didn't go quite that far to the point of getting his body marked up for mistakes, even though it was body-breaking.

"Well no, but for the first time I think it worked out pretty well." He'd get cut less next time, and the next time after that, and he'd stay on longer without being knocked off no matter how quickly Shigure threw them at him, "Eventually when she doesn't expect it I'm gonna take a shot at her in the middle of it just to prove I can counter her."

"You're ambitious Naruto-kun." Miu said with a bit of a laugh, but she was imagining just how poorly that would probably go. He was given points for tenacity and spirit though, "Do you really think it'll go that well?"

"Not really!" Kenichi fell face-first into the debris-laden grass at the happy sounding declaration that came from the ninja of the conversation, "But what if it did? If I beat a master, even off of something lucky like them slipping on a random banana peel and falling down a flight of stairs, that still counts right?"

"Even if it did, it'd be a sneak attack." Kenichi chided dryly.

"I don't think he'd care." Miu answered before Naruto could state the obvious.

XxX

(The Next Day – Mall)

A well-lit public place with lots of ways out, lots of people around, and even more. Those were the promised conditions of the meeting venue, and for someone like Naruto that was the closest thing to the extension an olive branch that he was going to see in a situation like this, especially since Naruto had gotten there well before he was even supposed to meet Kenichi for the gathering in order to scout it out for ways out and other things that could help later.

A trap from Loki wasn't out of the realm of possibility, and Naruto wanted to make sure they could avoid that chance at all costs. Last time it happened, things didn't go so well.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kenichi asked, dressed in casual streetwear of jeans and a tan t-shirt with blue stripes, "This is literally walking into the trouble isn't it?"

"No, I don't think it's a good idea." Naruto answered honestly, wearing his own standard clothes of grey cargo pants and a long-sleeved dark blue shirt with a black, white, and silver spiral wave design on the sleeves, "But sometimes your best idea is a crappy one. You said you didn't want to fight these guys anymore right? Other than taking them all out, this is our best shot."

Sitting back and being reactionary, trying to deter Ragnarok by repeatedly rebuffing their attempts to take them down wasn't working. Kenichi's defensive 'wait and react' measure of handling the situation was just making things more and more annoying. On the other hand, Naruto's idea to more or less just straight up punch them in the mouth and see how they liked it probably wouldn't have flown much better either.

Even so, while this was more Kenichi's speed to not wanting to start fights, it was still pretty intimidating. He was going to be talking to the heaviest hitters of a group full of delinquents. He had nightmares that started out like this. Even if he was getting more ripped by the day, and even if he was growing by leaps and bounds in fighting skill, it was still scarier than hell.

"Why'd you bring Shigure-sensei's pet mouse?" Kenichi asked, noticing for the third time since they'd met that day that Tochumaru was poking out of the top of Naruto's backpack looking around and munching on one of a variety of snacks that Naruto had packed that morning for him before leaving his house.

"I don't know." Naruto admitted, craning his neck enough to take a peek at the little rodent before continuing to go about his business, "He followed me home last night after training so I guess Shigure wanted him to watch what I was doing or something."

They hadn't said anything about what was going to go down today to anyone in Ryouzanpaku, so perhaps it was a coincidence, but things like that didn't exist with those people.

"So if you're living at Ryouzanpaku now, where's Miu?" Naruto asked, getting Kenichi to twitch involuntarily, "I don't think you'd be able to leave without her following you… or that you'd want to." Seriously, they were usually around each other now that he lived out of the dojo. Nigh inseperable.

"Ah, this whole thing is my problem. I don't want her to get involved in any of this if she doesn't have to." He trained so hard for one reason in order to get powerful enough to protect someone such as Miu. Part of that didn't involve letting her fight his battles, even if they were shaping up to get pretty terrifying, "She's here, I just wandered by the pet store first and while she was looking at the kittens I said I had to go do something. She said okay, so it technically isn't ditching her right?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. Distracting her with cats. Damn, that was good. A him-brand move. Really underhanded, "You're gonna-?" He stopped and just dragged a hand down his face, thinking that he should call her anyway. Now wasn't really the time to be chivalrous, but still he had to give props for a diversion well done, "Alright. You know what you're doing."

It wasn't like it was going to be the two of them against the world anyway, so if that was what Kenichi wanted it'd be okay. It should have been okay anyway.

Catching sight of Takeda and Ukita just waiting around in front of one of the arcades in the mall, the former Ragnarok Skill Trio members headed on over and joined up on the walk, falling in step with Naruto and Kenichi. Granted, this made the latter feel significantly better about what they were walking into, but not enough to calm his nerves entirely.

"So everybody invited is here." Takeda said, a long blade of grass sitting in his mouth, proceeding to give Kenichi a salute and bump fists with Naruto upon getting over to them, "This looks like it'll be a fun little party."

"If this is how it's going to end I'd much rather go down giving those bastards a taste of Judo than wait for someone to come for me." Ukita said, pushing up his sunglasses on his nose, trying to look cooler, "But I really hope it doesn't go that far." He admitted belatedly with a twinge of uncertainty, "Now where's this meeting?"

"It's supposed to be at the department store under construction at the north end."

Everyone recoiled in surprise upon hearing Niijima and finding him hiding within one of the aesthetic planters littered around the ground floor of the mall. As if that were entirely acceptable for someone to do.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Naruto asked loudly, grabbing Niijima out of the planter and setting him down on the ground, trying to ignore the bystanders gawking at the display at the moment, "Observe and report! What happened to observe and report!?" Naruto hissed under his breath at him.

'What the hell is going on?' Everyone else thought before Ukita spoke up over everyone else, "No, nevermind. What is he even doing here?" He might have heard about the entire situation yesterday, but that didn't explain why he was there.

"If this is a real negotiation I can't let you pack of meatheads go in there without an envoy." Niijima claimed to the angry judoka, "None of you are really smart enough to bargain much of anything without it breaking out into a fistfight." Takeda and Ukita cracked their knuckles, but this didn't do much to deter the odd-looking boy who was currently grinning with suddenly jagged teeth, "Am I really that wrong, or could you really talk your way out of the deserter's penalty?"

They could not with any confidence say that they could.

"…Fine."

As the five young men went on to their predetermined meeting place, they managed to miss a person hiding in another planter on the second floor; a brown-haired teenage girl wearing a green stocking cap looking down at them through ranged goggles on her eyes. She wore a yellow A-shirt with suspenders attached to short brown shorts and boots and camouflage paint on certain parts of her face and body, "Got to send Loki-sama a message that the saps are all ready for the trap to be set."

As the young woman that had just spoken tried to put a short-wave walkie-talkie to her ear and mouth she found it somehow taken from her hand as cold steel was put to her neck, "Ah, I can't really let you send that message. Get up please. Come on."

Standing up with a nervous gulp, the girl was led out of her hiding place by some girl around her age with brown hair in buns wearing a red jacket, a light brown short skirt, and open-toed shoes that wrapped snugly around her ankles, "W-Who are you?" The female underling of Loki asked as her arm was bound and she was calmly led away.

"Me?" Tenten asked as she hid the fact she was holding Number 20 at kunai-point between the two of them, "I'm the person that was supposed to shadow one of those guys you were spying on, just in case someone like you was watching them."

"Wait a minute, you used to be in the Valkyries didn't you?" Because she looked awfully familiar. As Loki's right hand she had to know pretty much everything he did, and he knew about every member of Ragnarok, especially the members of Freya's small attack squad.

"Ma~ybe. But that doesn't matter. What matters right now is this." Tenten presented a floor plan of the mall for Number 20 to see, "Right now I need you to point out every spot on this map where you've got people hidden to attack my friend and his friends down there."

"I'll never betray Loki-sama like that!" She had to warn Loki somehow that things were going wrong. While the original method of communication had been nixed, she still had her phone. If only she could get an opening to pocket-dial or do something without this… traitor to Ragnarok doing something about it.

'This had better work Shikamaru.' Tenten thought to herself as she led Loki's chief underling away. She could already feel the multitude of eyes on her back following her, and they weren't from the patrons shopping at the mall, 'If it doesn't, Naruto isn't the only one that's going to be in trouble here.'

* * *

**Why the #$% have I been watching Epic Meal Time on Youtube so much recently? That shit is great, but that food should kill people, and I'm not joking. I'm scared to try and make anything on that show for fear that my heart isn't manly enough to take the calories and I suffer a massive heart attack.**

**While that has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all I still felt it needed to be pointed out.**

**Anyway, I can't be sure but I think I've got something cool up my sleeve that'll come at you soon, so just stay tuned and I'll hit you with what I've got in my mental mind to see if it works for you.**

**I think it'll be a nice little twist.**

**Kenchi out.**


	9. Doing Time on the 'Rok

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Online story posting! Got the universal boss of word processors, with a chapter that's about to get you drunk and put you to bed! WAKE UP MOTHER #$%ER!

I don't know what I'm saying. Just… ignore all of that.

**Chapter 9: Doing Time on the 'Rok**

* * *

"Now where in the world did Kenichi go?" Miu asked, finally out of her trance that had been induced by the sight of new kittens in the window of the mall pet store. She felt a bit ashamed. Had she been paying the baby animals so much attention that Kenichi had told her where he'd gone and she'd just forgotten? How embarrassing.

He did seem to have a lot on his mind that morning before they'd left. Actually, he'd seemed preoccupied the entire afternoon and evening before as well. Naruto even stayed over later than he usually would have for some reason before leaving.

Something was strange about today for sure. Well she'd call Kenichi and try to figure out where he was. She was probably just being silly and Kenichi wandered off to a bookstore for a bit while she got her fill of loving on kittens.

The phone rang and rang before going to voicemail, putting a curious expression on the girl's face, "He's not picking up. Is something really wrong?" Maybe she'd call Naruto and find out if he knew whether or not anything was troubling Kenichi. Putting in the call, she got voicemail as well, "Mou, Naruto-kun too?"

To the surprise of everyone in the vicinity that caught sight of it, Miu jumped up onto the top of a second floor kiosk to get a better spot to look down over that section of the mall. If she were Kenichi where would she be?

In the middle of her searching around for Ryouzanpaku's disciple, she managed to hone her eyes in on something. A girl with brown hair in buns was walking extremely close to another girl wearing a hat and weird eyewear that looked quite nervous… and there was a black, metal blade between them.

With a gasp, Miu jumped off of the kiosk and landed on the rail of a downward moving escalator before getting to the ground floor and quickly running over to the two girls, stopping in front of them and pointing at the bun-haired girl, "Where do you think you're taking her with that knife?"

This had not been something that Tenten had been expecting.

"Uh." Tenten said, sharing a confused look with Number 20 for a second as to what was going on now, "Who are you?" This blonde girl with big boobs wearing a skirt, a frayed yellow sweater that hung off of her shoulders, and a skintight sleeveless purple garment beneath it just came out of nowhere.

"A martial artist." Miu said before standing firmly in her stance, "I can't let you kidnap someone at knife-point."

Tenten blanched as Number 20 smirked and started bawling, "Oh thank you! I didn't know what to do! She said she'd stab me if I shouted for help! Please, she said she was going to do terrible things to me!"

"Shut up! No I didn't!" Tenten replied, trying to defend herself with her own story. There was no way she was going to get away with Loki's favorite underling in tow without giving something, "Look, she's important to making sure my friend doesn't get ambushed. I just need her to point out where some bad guys are and that's it!"

"You see? Interrogation! Torture!"

Trying to explain wasn't working and Tenten could tell. And the more she paid attention to the blonde girl the more she realized that she was one of the Ryouzanpaku people that Naruto and Shikamaru were adamant about warning her about, 'Really hot, huge chest and way too curvy for a teenager, blonde, blue eyes, beauty mark under left eye. Damn it!'

'Warned' because if Tenten didn't think she could be a Fist, she couldn't beat Miu. Fighting wasn't even supposed to be the plan of action today. At least not hers. She was just supposed to grab Number 20, and get her away from there. Everything else was supposed to handle itself.

How'd she even see the kunai? She'd been hiding it!

"L-Look, now's really not a good time." Tenten said, trying not to make a show of looking over her shoulder. This was bad. She could feel ill intent all around them, so she was already for the most part surrounded by Ragnarok members blending into the normal mall populace, "If you don't believe me you can come with, but I really need to keep moving, now."

Miu observed Tenten closely. For some reason this girl was jumpier than the one that was being held captive. She didn't get it, but then a mall patron moved closer to the ongoing situation than the others who while they hadn't been saying anything, instead trying to ignore it altogether, had been giving them a wider berth. This person felt he'd gotten close enough and pulled a pocket knife to try and charge Tenten from behind with.

Miu was about to shout a warning as she didn't want anyone to get stabbed, but Tenten saw it as well. She dropped the kunai she'd been hiding in her hand and threatening Number 20 with and caught it by the ring between her toes before flicking her heel back hard enough to throw the knife and stab the charging attacker in the front of the ankle, bringing him down painfully.

"Gah!" The young man said as he fell and started freaking out over the wound he'd just sustained from the small black blade in his limb, "My leg! How did-? What even happened?!"

As surprised as she was, Miu still paid attention to the weapon now that she could see it clearly, "That looks like one of the knives that Naruto-kun uses sometimes." One of those ninja knives. But did that mean that this girl-? No, it couldn't be, "Hey!"

Speaking of which, Tenten had taken the slight moment of chaos to try and get away, now no longer walking but forcing Number 20 to run via an arm hold behind her back, coaxing her forward with pain and risk of injury, "This is _not_ how this was supposed to go!" In a matter of seconds, Miu had caught up with her, "Oh come on!"

"What's going on?" Miu more or less demanded to know at this point, narrowing her eyes as she kept at Tenten's speed, "I'll sweep you if you don't tell me."

"Fine, there's this group called Ragnarok and this girl was about to send a message that-."

"-Wait, Ragnarok?"

Color Tenten surprised because it was etched all over her face, "Yeah, why? You know about them?"

"They're after my friends all of the time! Kenichi-kun and Naruto-kun!"

Hold on a second, say what now? "…Wait, you're friends with Naruto? He said you fought each other all the time! For years!" When telling the story of the scary Ryouzanpaku and its inhabitants they (or Naruto) had seemingly glossed over that part in exchange for telling horror stories about Naruto's failures.

"Yes?" Miu pouted at the fact that she didn't know, probably because Naruto didn't say anything about it, "…It doesn't mean we can't be friends just because we fought. But then this girl is-?"

"She's one of Loki's people if you know that name." Tenten said, "Probably his second if the fact that she was spying that close on Naruto was anything to go by." That and the unconditional trust and complete loyalty in her 'Loki-sama'. It was kind of weird since they were just teenagers.

Miu was fully aware of Loki as the one that had trapped and beaten up Kenichi and had initiated the trap that almost significantly hurt Naruto almost a month ago, "But if she's here, then Kenichi-kun could be in real danger!"

"Which one is he?" Tenten asked, "The big guy with the scar, the cute guy with the white hair, the freaky-looking kid with the bowl cut, or the skittish-looking guy with the band-aid on his face? They're all with Naruto."

"The last one you described." Thank goodness. She could at least feel some relief that Kenichi wasn't alone, "What are they all doing here?" Neither Naruto nor Kenichi said anything about meeting up at the mall, and if Naruto had just run into Kenichi he could have at least dropped by the pet store to say hello.

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Mall – Under Construction Department Store)

At the northern portion of the mall, the under construction department store was meant to be the meeting point of the Ragnarok meet with the ragtag group of wayward fighters. Naruto and Takeda made their way in with something of a nervous swagger. Ukita was just glowering to cover how nervous he felt, and Kenichi's nerves were evident all over his face. Luckily he wasn't sweating, because he didn't need that tell to go with everything else.

A rather dubious venue if any for a 'peaceful sitdown' situation, but nevertheless there wasn't anyone inside to victimize Naruto, Kenichi, Niijima, Takeda, and Ukita. At least not yet.

The windows were covered with 'coming soon' signs, so it was good enough to keep people from looking inside and busting them for being somewhere they shouldn't have been. Inside was pretty empty and deep. There were pillars, escalators to the second level of the store, and all sorts of sections in each portion of the place. They hadn't stocked it yet, nor had they really finished with the interior, but at least it had installed fluorescent lights that were on.

Opening the doors to the low-lit back storage room of the store, Ukita and Takeda led the way followed by the other three. Upon entering, the first thing they saw was a young man clad entirely in black sitting in a chair with his arms crossed and his feet on a table set up as temporary furniture for the meet underneath a hanging lightbulb.

Most of his face was obscured by the hood of his long, open, dark battle cloak that had armbands on the sleeves and gloves that had the Roman numeral VI on them.

He barely acknowledged the presence of the others with naught more than a passing glance, not even shifting positions as they entered the room.

"This guy looks like a lot of fun." Naruto sarcastically muttered under his breath, getting elbowed in the side by Kenichi for it, "Tch. What? He's just sitting there trying to look all cool like we haven't been giving them the runaround."

"Be friendly." Kenichi chided. He didn't want things to start a fight right off the bat. They'd been there for all of thirty seconds.

"Fuck that, they've been trying to kick our asses for three months." The least they owed the lot of them was sitting back and taking a few harmless jabs from the blond bomber. The _very_ least, "No sir, 'friendly' stopped after that thing at the park."

"Don't make waves idiot!" Niijima said, conveniently keeping himself placed behind everyone as tactical human shields just in case. He really would have preferred it if Naruto didn't shoot his mouth off at a time like this, "Don't you know who that is?"

"No, I don't know who that is." Naruto responded, gnashing his teeth, "Why the hell does everyone always ask me that? If I knew who he was, I'd have said his name. Why should I have to know who all of these jerks are before I meet 'em? Wear fucking nametags if you want to be known on sight."

"That's Hermit."

"Good for him."

"The _Sixth_ Fist."

"…Good for him."

"I'm trying to be serious here!" Niijima shouted, throwing an empty can at Naruto's head only for it to miss.

"Oh, so am I." Naruto replied as he took the seat directly across the table from Hermit, "And I'm failing… and I'm sorry for that. It's just that I'm so agitated, because for the last three months I've had to beat up at least a dozen different nameless goons on a bi-weekly basis, fought two Fists of this stupid gang already, and now I've got this guy sitting with his feet up on the table trying to look dark and cool and impress me like I'm some chick at high school orientation."

And in unison, every single person there on Naruto's side of things palmed their faces.

"People that talk the biggest usually have the weakest arm to back it up." Hermit said, barely rising at all to anything that Naruto had said, "Do you always run your mouth like that when you're scared?"

Instead of getting even more upset, Naruto just smiled creepily at the bitter young man in front of him, "Well people tend to ignore you when you throw it in their faces, like the small dog with the big bark you know? So ignore it. That's just fine with me if you never see me coming." That didn't make much sense to anyone but Naruto, but he didn't care.

"Hey, I'm sorry about him." Kenichi interjected, "He's just a little wound up. We ate before we got here and he had two coffees." Never again, and why did Niijima insist that Naruto drink them when he tried to deter him from it?

"You really like playing the good guy don't you?" Hermit said to Kenichi with a superior smirk under his hood, "Is it really that important that you look like the hero? The voice of reason?" It was entertaining to him, "Your friend there might be a bothersome ass, but at least he doesn't try to act like he's some magnanimous man."

"What are you talking about?"

"You. Everyone acts like something they're not, and I'm certain that this whole white-bread, 'aw shucks' crap isn't who you are at heart." Hermit continued, "I know guys that act like you. One day you'll reveal who you really are."

Kenichi just gave him a straightforward stare of confusion, wondering what he was trying to allude to, Ukita was doing his best to keep a stiff upper lip, appearing tougher than he felt at the moment, and Naruto was just gnashing his teeth restlessly in his seat.

"Now, now, let's all take it easy here." Takeda said, walking up next to Naruto before setting a hand on his spiky head, "No need to get all bent out of shape so soon. You're not the only representative of Ragnarok here are you?"

A door at the opposite end of the storage room opened and a towering, large-framed young man walked out, "Of course not." Niijima quietly whispering 'Seventh Fist Thor' was picked up by the others, thus they deemed this person Thor, "We were just wondering what you would do if you were faced with one of us alone. You didn't try to attack or intimidate Hermit."

"As if it would have worked." Hermit said with a scoff, "I don't react to weaklings."

"Wow." Ukita said, sizing up the massive Thor, and not favorably to himself. He was even bigger than he was. Significantly bigger, like three of the others stuck together. He'd never met any of the other Fists in person before. He'd seen a few of them like Freya, but he had just been Kisara's underling, 'What did I get myself into here? Can I even throw that guy?'

"I still can't help but feel a little insulted though." Takeda said with an easygoing grin as Ukita hissed for him to shut up, "Just two of you for this? Come on."

"No, no." Loki said as he walked in from behind, wearing a know-it-all smirk on his face as he sat down at the table, hands folded calmly, "I'm here too boxer, don't you worry. There has to be at least one reasonable member of Ragnarok here to handle matters."

"Luckily there are more than that." Naruto's head snapped towards the entrance as a voice he was actually familiar with made itself known. And in walked Freya, seemingly without her ever-present staff, "Relax Uzumaki, I'm not here to fight. Not today. Odin requested that at least one of the Three of Card show up to make this legitimate as possible." She then noticed Naruto staring somewhat blankly at her as she took a seat and she sighed, "The Three of Card is what we call the top three Fists."

"I didn't even ask."

"It was all over your face."

Naruto looked away as if his curiosity had literally been on his face for Freya to read while Niijima quickly took a seat and forced Kenichi to do the same right next to him. Somehow he'd also dragged Takeda and Ukita directly behind them for added protection, "So Odin isn't here?"

Loki spared Niijima half a look before chuckling, "I'm sorry, why are you talking? I wasn't aware that Ragnarok even had trouble with someone like you. This is a meeting to hash out the differences between Ragnarok, some of our estranged members, and some people we've unfortunately targeted before something tragic happens."

'Unfortunately' he said. 'Tragic' he says. That got a glare out of Kenichi who actually felt a significant bit of anger at how smug Loki seemed at getting to corner and beat him up due to him having to ensure his sister was safe first. He was about to stand up and rebut, but Niijima prompted him to stay down before clearing his throat and going with his first move of negotiations.

"Please spare us!" Niijima cried out, suddenly leaving his seat and bowing on the ground to the vaunted Ragnarok, much to the complete and abject shock of everyone there that he'd supposed to have been negotiating for, "This is all just a big misunderstanding! Seriously, you think these guys by themselves are a threat? Hahahahaa, no!"

"Hey!" Naruto, Kenichi, Takeda, and Ukita cried out with varying degrees of outrage.

"Have mercy!" Niijima continued to exclaim, keeping his head low and to the ground, "I know if you look into your hearts you'll find the right answer!"

Hermit sneered underneath his hood before bringing up one of his legs from where he was hosting it on the table and bringing it down, turning it to splinters with hardly an effort, "Tch. I _hate_ weaklings." All Loki could do was laugh to himself at how this was all working out.

"What kind of men are you?" An irate Thor asked, gesturing to Niijima's groveling, "This was meant to be a meeting between fighters that could have some sort of common understanding and you bring this person here to speak for you?"

It wasn't that they were apparently asking for clemency, it was how downright pathetic Niijima looked in doing it, as if he had absolutely no pride even as a man. It was insulting that _these_ people had ever come up on their radar as the slightest bit of a threat.

Even the ever-stoic Freya fixed them with a bit of a dismayed furrow to her brow, "I figured a group that associated with someone like Uzumaki would be more admirable." And with that she looked at Naruto with an expression that didn't say that she was angry, it was one that read that she was more disappointed than anything else.

Damn it, why the hell did it affect him that much more when people were disappointed in him than when they were just upset? He could deal with upset, not with disappointment.

Naruto just looked back at her slack-jawed as if she was really believing that Niijima was speaking for the lot of them. Much like Takeda, Kenichi, and Ukita, he was equally dumbfounded that they were actually buying this crap, "Niijima!" A red-cheeked Naruto hissed at him under his breath, "Cut it out! You're ruining my rep!"

None of this seemed to get through to the self-proclaimed brains of the outfit as he continued, "Just… just let it slide would you? Just once!"

"Well I think we've reached an impasse here." Loki said with a huge grin, "I mean, it's not like we can let people like this get an upper hand on Ragnarok, even once. And really, who wants this in the gang? That was your only hope really."

"Agreed." Freya said, standing up from her chair with her hands on her shapely hips.

Slapping his hands together, Thor glared the five young men across from them down, "The only thing keeping me from taking care of these lot is the promise to Odin that we wouldn't fight at the meeting."

"Well the meeting is over, as pitiful as it was." Hermit said, kicking his own chair away from himself into the dark of the storage room, "So there's no reason not to smash them now."

"I like the way Hermit's thinking." Loki admitted, laughing out loud as everyone across from them settled into reactionary defensive stances, "It's time for the complete victory."

"It's five on four!" Kenichi said, trying to deter them only then noticing that Niijima wasn't there anymore. Not that he would have been any help anyway, "Oh. Nevermind." Looking around at Takeda, Ukita, and Naruto he felt their luck running out, "Any ideas?"

Naruto felt a tap on the back of his hand and realized that it was Tochumaru handing him something. Something pretty sharp, "Uh… yeah." With that, Naruto threw a shuriken right at the hanging lightbulb, breaking it and putting the entire room into complete darkness.

The sounds of scuffling, feet sliding on the floor, a dull thwack, panicked mutters of 'Shit-shit-shit' from Ukita, and a door being opened letting a touch of light into the room took over.

By the time the Ragnarok contingent made it out into the front area of the department store within a matter of seconds, they were all ready to knock the nearest enemy's head off, feeling confident that whatever ambush tactic the ninja of the pack tried on them had failed as they'd made it out all in one piece.

"Wait." Thor said, looking around at who was with him; Freya and Hermit… and that was it, "…Where's Loki?"

XxX

(A Distance Away – Men's Restroom)

"Why the fuck did you grab Loki?" Ukita bellowed at Naruto, holding him off of the ground by the front of his backpack straps.

"Why the fuck wouldn't I grab Loki?" Naruto shouted back at him, butting his goggle-clad forehead against Ukita's even though he was still being held off of the ground, "When the lights went out he was the only one that was wide open!"

Indeed, sitting on the john inside of one of the stalls was a thoroughly unconscious Loki with his strange mesh glasses hanging awkwardly off of his face, and blood dripping from his nose and mouth. Naruto had definitely nailed him.

"Good on you though." Takeda complimented, looking over Naruto's handiwork, "I mean it was a sneak attack and everything, but that's how you roll so whatever. You dropped another Fist, and without a fight this time."

"Yeah, I have a tendency to just wake up and be awesome sometimes." Naruto preened with a huge grin, still being held up by Ukita, "That was way easier than I thought it would be. He only took one punch. Sucker punch or not, still."

Kenichi observed the beaten up enemy before frowning and granting the others with some rather disconcerting news, "This isn't the real Loki. He uses body doubles in his place sometimes. This one's a fake." He didn't notice during the meeting, but now that he could get a much closer look in the light, it was clear. The hair was dyed, the definition of his muscles weren't the same, and his jaw line wasn't quite lined up correctly with Loki's.

The thing that sold it was when Kenichi felt the joints on his hands and at his elbow. No, this wasn't Loki. With Loki's style of Karate that Kenichi had endured the beating from firsthand, they would have been tempered and strong, even when limp.

"Very good old buddy." Niijima once again scared the hell out of Kenichi by appearing out of nowhere, "I figured that after what I know now the real Loki wouldn't show his face. It's just not tactically sound for a guy like that." His self-gratifying musings were brought to a close when he heard the cracking of knuckles and saw Ukita and Takeda slowly stalking toward him, "H-Hey, what's wrong?"

"You blew it." Ukita said, preparing to put Niijima's face through a window for the trouble he caused them, "What the hell was that?"

"All just step one of my master plan!" Niijima claimed spiritedly, "I couldn't have Ragnarok perceiving you all as actual equals or something close to it!" This actually did wind up with him getting hit with Takeda's fist while he was busy bloviating to himself.

"Alright, so Loki's not here." Naruto said, a bit displeased at all of this, "Where's the real one then?"

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Mall)

"So what was the point of taking this girl?" Miu asked as she was still running with Tenten, "A hostage? I'm not very comfortable with that I have to say."

"No, no, not a hostage." Tenten replied, still holding Number 20 tightly against her will as she pushed her forward through the mall, "I told you already. There's an ambush for Naruto and the guys that he's here with. This girl was going to call it in if I hadn't done what I did."

Oh, so it was out of necessity. And it _did_ spare her friends an ambush, so Miu was alright with it for now as long as this was all that happened, "…So now what?"

"I don't know." Shikamaru told Tenten to look out for someone calling the shots, and that would be who she was supposed to grab and leave with. And that was all. He said that everything else would handle itself, "The plan never specified what I was supposed to do after I nabbed her."

"That's as far as you go."

Hearing a familiar voice, Number 20 didn't care any longer how Tenten pushed her forward, slamming on the brakes enough that it prompted the bun-haired girl to turn and see just what was going on. Somehow a small pack of thugs had managed to cut them off close enough and they just so happened to be led by the infamous Loki himself.

"Loki-sama!" Number 20 exclaimed excitedly, feeling rescued, "I knew you wouldn't leave me to this!"

"It seems like all kinds of bugs are coming out of the works to try their luck with Ragnarok." Loki said, still grinning as he walked closer, the other punks bringing up the rear, "Why can't people just figure their place and stay out of the way? It'd be so much easier!" With his last word it was emphasized by Loki pulling out a taser that he jabbed out at Miu first. This was a rather significant mistake.

Miu avoided the jab of the electric weapon with a back handspring that let her kick the taser out of Loki's extended arm, knocking it up into the air to disarm and disorient him. In one smooth motion after setting her feet back on the ground she moved forward with a sudden uppercut that took him out cleanly.

Number 20 stood shocked that the big-breasted girl actually managed to do that with one move. All of the other underlings, and even Tenten didn't know what to say as the taser clicked and clacked off of the floor, "…Wait."

It took another second for Loki's loyal female underling to pick up on it as well, "Oh thank goodness, that wasn't the real Loki-sama. Heh, I should have known better that it was just one of his shadows."

"Exactly." Coming from many stores all over the nearby area, dozens of Ragnarok members came out, each being led by a different silver-haired, trench coat clad, mesh glasses-wearing Loki, "That's the great thing about the power of Loki-sama. With his intellect he doesn't even need to fight battles himself to win them!" The Loki that was speaking began to cackle until his head was crashed against by Number 20's, rendering both of them unconscious.

Tenten's leg was still lifted halfway from kicking Number 20 away to take out the fake Loki, "I can aim people too." She said under her breath before her eyes darted to Miu, "The real one isn't here."

"Uh huh." Miu was listening, but was a bit busy dodging swings from the rudimentary weapons that the regular punks had and the double-ended stun batons that the Loki copies possessed. In a blur of movement she dodged them all and retaliated resoundingly with athletic kicks that toppled her assailants quite casually.

'God, that girl is a monster.' Tenten thought to herself before brandishing shuriken in both hands from underneath her jacket that she aimed at charging waves of enemies, particularly placed to bring down certain people in a way that took multiple others down with them.

She couldn't really afford to let anyone get close. She wasn't confident in the least in her ability to fend off dozens of attackers at once up close the way Miu seemed to be tearing through them. Fortunately that didn't have to be an option for her.

Seeing another wave coming, Tenten narrowed her eyes to quickly take aim with another handful of shuriken before hurling them, missing the pack entirely and emboldening them all to keep going, "Sogeki Hanpatsu (Sniper Rebound)!"

The weapon ricocheted off of a pillar and bounced back to hit a few of the thugs in the rear, sending them stumbling forward and bringing down their whole group where Tenten proceeded to quickly stomp on their heads to ensure they didn't get back up.

"Nobody can get close to that chick with the buns, and that blonde one is a monster!"

"It doesn't matter! It's just two girls!"

From the back of the advancing Ragnarok force, two or three of their members fell out after violently being knocked on the head. The entire group turned around to see a slew of opposition that matched the force that they'd brought to the mall that day amazingly enough.

"The Proxy General says attack!"

Now feeling a bit put out, both Miu and Tenten watched blankly as the second force of teenagers started engaging the Ragnarok members that had been trying to overrun them, "O…kay?" Miu said, confused as all get out, "What's happening?"

"I'm not sure." Tenten replied, scratching her head curiously, "Really. I didn't know anything about this." She hadn't seen this coming at all, "…Should we do something?" She asked her newfound ally, for at least the moment. Miu just shook her head and Tenten decided that when in doubt she had to call the person who had basically given her the marching orders to begin with, only to get her call sent straight to the machine, "Wha-? Shikamaru!"

XxX

"No, no, no!" Loki complained audibly to himself from his place in the security center where he'd managed to get himself a spot watching over all of the security cameras in the mall. He'd had a perfect viewpoint to watch everything fall apart.

The only thing that had semi-worked out was the body-double he'd used at the meeting. He had fooled even the other Fists into believing he'd really been present for that farce of a meeting. He was aware of the people involved enough to know that it was just going to end with nothing being gained on either side, but he hadn't dreamed that the enemy would have facilitated the breakdown of negotiations so quickly.

With someone so logical like Freya there he at least figured the whole thing would last forty-five minutes, which would have given him ample time to manually get his guys in position to descend upon Naruto, Kenichi, Takeda, Ukita, and that Niijima guy the moment they left the meeting place.

But it had all fallen apart as Number 20 had been taken and the show that had been made of her being escorted out by that bun-haired girl got his men's attention, drawing them out into the fight that had then occurred.

Wait, they'd been drawn out.

Someone set all of this up? Someone set _him_ up? But that was impossible? He was 'Strategist' Loki! He'd planned for everything that the enemy would have done in response to him. He'd planned on what he'd do if Naruto or someone else spoiled the ambush by figuring it out. Hell, even their capturing of his shadow had been taken into consideration. He had their position now because of it! But his men were currently embroiled in a fight and couldn't go after them.

"I figured a guy like you just couldn't help yourself." Swiveling around in his chair, Loki saw someone he'd never met before standing in the doorway leaning against the frame. Some teenager with black hair in a high, spiky ponytail with a half-lidded expression wearing a dark pair of pants and a grey concert t-shirt, "Had to keep your eye on the action somewhere, right?"

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Loki asked, feeling quite realistically cornered as he got up from his seat. This guy was blocking the only door out of the room, and he seemed to know exactly who he was, "How did you even get back here?" He had to send out quite a few bribes and set up a few disturbances to get this window of time to himself.

Shikamaru just tapped at his temple, "It wasn't that hard to figure out. A guy like you, you'd stay as far away from the real action as you could get if you knew it was coming, but you want to be able to control everything from afar. You really made it too easy to beat you. It just took three things. Distraction, diversion, division."

The diversion was Tenten and how she yanked Number 20 out of position, for every Ragnarok member in the mall to see plainly and clearly. If he'd been correct, Shikamaru would have figured that all of the orders on the ground would be relayed from Loki and issued to the rest through one point. With her being indisposed, the others didn't know how to move, thus they set out to get her back, dragging them all out from their hiding places.

Simultaneously would come the distraction.

Niijima Haruo.

Shikamaru saw the benefit of having someone like that with access to numbers that he controlled, and he asked Naruto to let him speak with Niijima at the nearest opportunity, hence the phone call that Naruto made Niijima take the day before after school. An exchange of numbers to speak about this on their own time led the two of them to hash this little plan out themselves.

The division occurred here as well.

Loki planned on the meeting breaking down and everyone leaving through their own exits, front and back in groups just like how everyone had entered. Due to Odin's insistence that there would be no fighting during the meeting, Freya would ensure that no hostilities were initiated during the meet. No, it would start once Naruto's group stepped back outside of the department store. The Fists would quickly realize that there was a fight going on right outside the front. The hot-tempered ones in Thor and Hermit would turn around and join the battle just to get themselves a piece of the losers that they'd just been meeting with.

This didn't happen either, because of the simple walking chaos theory that was Uzumaki Naruto, fudging the whole thing up. He was grossly misinformed the entire time, only knowing that Shikamaru had some kind of plan in place in case the shit hit the fan and the meeting was a trap. Naruto had supreme confidence in Shikamaru's word, so much so that he asked no questions and was as calm as he could be heading into such a scenario. He acted exactly the way he was anticipated to act with the way that things unfolded.

…But of course he had some help with that to ensure that both sides did exactly what was expected. While Shikamaru could sit back and make all of the logical plans and failsafes that he wanted, the mindsets of people were always a wild card factor. When it came to manipulating the thoughts of people and their emotions to ensure things remained on track Niijima was infinitely more gifted at that than him, and he used that.

"Distraction, diversion, division." Shikamaru repeated before smirking slightly, "…And then we put you on display, for the whole world to see."

XxX

Cackling victoriously to himself, Niijima had just gotten through laying out to the others exactly what had transpired and why he'd done what he had chosen to do during the meeting in throwing himself on the mercy of Ragnarok, only with much more exuberance and hyperbole in the way he described things, "It's brilliant! Hence I've decided that that man is the Proxy General. In my absence he has supreme command of our organization!"

The last part went mostly unheard.

"You set that whole thing up with one of Naruto's friends?" Kenichi asked, bewildered at the prospect. First of all at the idea that Naruto had other friends, because he never talked about them. Secondly that someone was devious enough to throw this all together to Niijima's liking, "What exactly are you putting on display here?" He pointed at the fake Loki that they still had. By now Naruto had Tochumaru bind him with some metal wire that he kept in his bag so that he didn't escape, "This one's fake!"

A lightbulb then went off in Naruto's head and he quickly grabbed the beaten Loki before running out of the bathroom with Tochumaru slipping back into his bag, 'This one's fake!' Confused at his friend's actions but unwilling to let him go alone, Kenichi bolted out after him, followed by Takeda who usually acted first and thought second.

Niijima only laughed more, seemingly flicking a forked tongue around in his mirth, "Naruto gets it! That Loki is fake, which meant that the real one was never there. And with everything that just happened, do you know what this means? It means that Loki not only lied and tried to make First Fist Odin's word meaningless and tarnish his honor, he just tried to use three of his upper-level comrades, one that even outranked him, as pawns!"

As the last remaining actual fighter in the bathroom that could actually hear all of this, Ukita had to wipe at a bit of sweat that had formed on his forehead, "Whoever this Shikamaru guy is, I never want to piss him off."

XxX

Loki had to take a few steps back when he saw Naruto bolt out of the bathroom, clutching onto his shadow. Where was that idiot going? It didn't matter right now. How had all of this fallen apart so easily? It made no sense!

That man.

From behind his mesh glasses, Loki glared heatedly at the unassuming Shikamaru, "You think I've lost?"

"Yeah." Shikamaru replied calmly.

"You really think I can't get myself out of this?"

"Yep. Because you aren't getting the chance to."

"And what are you going to stop me?"

The two had something of a standoff before Loki moved at his dullard-looking adversary with his Spear Hand style of Karate that had devastated Kenichi so badly. One good combination would debilitate Shikamaru if it hit cleanly enough. This punk didn't look like much of a fighter to begin with either.

"I'm not a Fist just because of my mind." Loki boasted with a grin, "You've got to be able to back it up with your fists too!"

"Says who?" Shikamaru said, stepping back out into the hallway and lazily cartwheeling out of the way of Loki's attack. Upon reaching the doorway, Loki's advancing foot got caught on a tripwire, causing him to fall forward face-first into the wall with authority, "I don't use my fists when I fight."

Loki growled, sparing the hole that his head had just put into the plaster a passing glance before going after Shikamaru again who had stopped a bit farther down the hall, "Drop dead you bastard!"

Shikamaru shrugged to himself before charging directly forward, hands still in his pockets. Loki went forward to meet him in a clash, but spotted several more nearly invisible tripwires on the floor and even some at neck level, "Hah! You think that'll work again?" He could step right through those without losing a bit of momentum or having to look twice at them.

Shikamaru removed his hands from his pockets as Loki started dashing through the traps. The second his hands left his pockets wires that had been sitting parallel against the wall pulled out, forming a web from one of the high lines and one of the low lines. Loki stopped himself before he charged into it, but Shikamaru never broke stride, revealing that he had wires connecting his hands by the fingers.

Throwing his arms over the top of his 'failed' web trap, Shikamaru pulled them around Loki's head and the back of his neck, pulling him the rest of the way forward into the net. It was only a matter of making a few laps around Loki's body for Shikamaru to finish binding him while he still stood.

"You bastard! What did you do?"

"The first move is always a feint." Shikamaru said before kicking Loki's bound legs out from underneath him and knocking him to the ground, "It's the most basic thing in the world to know to land your blow with the second move. If you say you're still strong enough to be a Fist even if you weren't as smart as you are, you're really not the kind of person I'd want to fight with." With a jerk of his arm he tightened the net surrounding Loki's body, "Game over."

"What do you mean 'game over'?" Loki bellowed as Shikamaru dragged him down the hall and back out into the main part of the mall, "You didn't beat me! You didn't outthink me! I'm a master strategist, you're just a punk! Who do you think you are?" He simply couldn't believe this had happened.

"I'm so done with this." Shikamaru said to himself with a roll of his eyes.

XxX

(Mall Main Floor – Second Level)

"Naruto-san, stop!" Kenichi cried out as he tried to keep up with Naruto. Even with all of his training with Ryouzanpaku he still wasn't as fast as Naruto, and that bastard was carrying someone that was a touch bigger than he was, "At least slow down!"

Huffing and puffing behind him was Takeda. Even with all of the running that he had to do to keep his stamina and speed up as a boxer, he was still unable to keep up with Kenichi, barely able to keep him in sight through the crowd, "Man, what did Ryouzanpaku training do to that guy?"

Naruto did not slow down though, and he stayed on the upper level to avoid having to deal with the running fight going on downstairs between Ragnarok flunkies and… were those the people that Niijima had wrangled up to be in his group? Whatever, that wasn't important. Eventually he managed to find who he was looking for, standing on the bridge joining the two sides.

Hermit was gone, off doing who knows what, but Freya and Thor remained, looking down at the ongoing fight until the presence of Naruto was felt and they turned to face him, "You!" Thor bellowed, pointing accusingly at Naruto, "You've got some nerve showing your face in front of us after everything that happened?"

"You still have Loki." Freya said, now holding onto her trademark staff carefully, "What are you doing here Uzumaki?"

Naruto just tossed the fake Loki off of his shoulder and onto the floor in front of them, "This ain't Loki. The one that was in the meeting with us was a fake." Brushing underneath both of his eyes with a thumb, Naruto took a step back disarmingly, "You might want to pick your friends better. Say what you want about mine, sometimes they suck but at least they have my back."

With his peace being spoken, Naruto turned to leave, wanting to find Shikamaru and Tenten and celebrate a good victory with his friends before Freya called out to stop him, "I knew Tenten when I saw her. I'm assuming she's on your side now?"

"The thing with Tenten is complicated, but it's my fault." Naruto said, turning back around running a hand through his hair, "I won't let you give her your stupid punishment for leaving. Take it out on me if you have to, if you can."

The dark-skinned joujutsu specialist observed him closely before Thor overshadowed her and stepped in with an eager and angry grin on his face, "I'll take you up on that challenge." The sumo said, pushing his sleeveless kimono off of his shoulders to bare his chest and removing his sandals to go barefoot, "Show me that you're worth the meeting this was supposed to be."

"Naruto-san don't fight him! You don't have to!" Kenichi called out, having finally caught up from the ground level. Due to the multitude of thugs still down there, Kenichi was busy dealing with idiots trying to take shots at him. It was a good thing Chinese Kenpo was so good for flowing motions that helped dispatch multiple enemies, "It's over! We won… kind of!"

"I shouldn't…" Naruto said, observing the surprisingly muscular Thor standing in his Sumo ready stance and slapping his hands together before his eyes flickered over to Freya for a split-second, "…Meh, fuck that. I've done enough running today. Bring it on."

Thor just chuckled, pleased at getting to face someone that he'd actually heard something about, "Freya and Valkyrie both swear that you're someone worth watching. But it doesn't matter because I'll show you just how terrifying Combat Sumo can be! Prepare yourself!"

Gritting his teeth, Naruto bent his legs and prepared to move as Thor went right at him and swung a powerhouse of a palm strike right at him. He'd have been a damn fool to stand in front of that, thus he didn't. He jumped onto the outstretched arm, and as he expected his weight meant nothing to Thor, thus Naruto shifted his hips and punted Thor right in the head before backflipping off back onto the floor.

"A sumo can endure a forward rush with the pressure of about one ton." Thor said, bleeding over his eye from where Naruto kicked him. But other than that he didn't seem affected by the solid blow, "You're puny! Do you really think your kicks can stop me? If you can't hurt me you can't defeat me!"

Naruto didn't really have big-time one-hit KO power. He did his damage with his hand-to-hand for the most part by accumulation of punishment on his foes, "Fine. I guess I'll have to do better then won't I?"

"I like that spirit!" Thor shouted before taking several quick punches to the face that bloodied his features, "I don't like that."

"Most people don't." Naruto rebutted before ducking and rolling out of the way of a grab that Thor tried to get on him due to their close proximity, "I won't hurt you? You'll never even touch me!"

So it was a matter of someone that land blows at will but couldn't hurt the other against one that couldn't lay a finger on his opponent, but was nigh impossible to fell. Something had to give at some point.

Takeda grit his teeth as he watched Naruto land blows on Thor's front that seemed to have no effect, "This is bullshit." He said as he knocked out another series of foes with flickeringly quick left hand strikes, "He's landing everything. It's like Thor's body is natural armor or something." All that fat and muscle wasn't just for show it seemed, "He's never going to knock him out like that."

This was a whole different beast from fighting Kisara and Kenichi could see it. While that fight had been a matter of speed and technique against speed and technique, it was the exact opposite here. Naruto's speed and technique had to find a way to overcome Thor's sheer size, power, and durability.

"But Naruto _is _strong." Kenichi said, holding off of continuing his words due to having to stop and batter away two more foes with the wide-armed flowing movements of Chinese Kenpo, "I've seen it. We all have. He drags tires that weigh at least as much as Thor every single day while running laps."

Back up on the level of the actual fight, Freya was viewing the fight closely. Naruto wasn't even trying to block Thor, as it would do him no good. He had to dodge or be crushed, but it didn't hurt that he was damn good at it.

"Hold still!" Thor demanded, taking several swings of both hands at Naruto who jumped and rolled out of the way each time. Finding Naruto right in front of his face he tried to clap at him as if he were a fly, only to loudly smack his hands together audibly enough to attract the attention of all of the previously fighting people on the bottom floor.

Naruto ducked the move and unleashed a nasty punch right at the inside of Thor's right knee, getting the giant of a teen to cry out in agony as he took a knee and swatted at Naruto with a straight crushing palm, "Oniharite (Demonic Open Fist Slap)!" The ninja avoided it by slim margins, but it brushed his face and made his temporary retreat make sense.

"Crap. Naruto's fighting Thor." Tenten said as she and Miu found a chance to disengage and depart from the larger-scale conflict to go and watch the ongoing fight up closer, "Was this supposed to happen too?"

Seeing Freya up there as well with staff in hand almost prompted Miu to rush right up there and interfere until Tenten somehow grabbed her hand to get her to stop, "He's outnumbered!"

"Freya-chan isn't fighting." Tenten noted, "If you really want to fight her go ahead, but she's staying out and leaving this a one-on-one." She still had a soft spot for her old leader, even if she had cast that bond aside in exchange for one that ran deeper.

Brushing the side of his slightly reddened face where the blow almost landed, Naruto sighed in relief. Dodging practice with Shigure really paid off for close shaves like that one, "Phew. Your head might be hard and your body might be tough, but joints are joints, and you don't look flexible enough to take too much of that. I won't cripple you, but I'll hit those spots until you stay down!"

"Grr…" Thor growled to himself, pounding the ground with both fists before pushing himself back up, "You've got to be kidding! You think that'll be enough to finish me? I've told you already, I'll show you how glorious Combat Sumo can be! My dream is to make my style accepted around the world, mainstream! I won't lose to a 'ninja' like you! It'll be decided here! Neither of our styles have had its time in the sun yet, but only one will get the opportunity today!"

Naruto stomped his foot on the ground three times as if he were kickstarting something and Freya's eyes went wide, 'Oh no.' Thor couldn't keep pace with Naruto normally. If he did what she figured he was about to do he was really going to be untouchable, "Thor put your back against something!"

'Taking his front two corners won't do me any favors.' Naruto observed, realizing that Freya had tried to warn Thor of how he would try to move, 'I can't hurt him from the front, but nobody can take a hit from the blind spot, especially to the back of the head.' "Tadayoudou (Straight Feint)!"

In a surprising move, Naruto forced Thor to wrongly time an attempt to catch him coming in, moving faster than the large young man thought he would before landing a jumping forward kick right to the face. He took one step when he should have had to take several to reach him.

Nothing but impact, but Thor didn't back off, enduring the blow until the sole of Naruto's shoe twisted on his face and he felt impact off of the back of his head from the shin Naruto's other leg, "Ni Ryuu (Double Dragons)! Go down already!"

Naruto was not a power-based fighter. Even some of his techniques that were meant to work with force behind them worked in a method of accumulation of damage and his most recent one showed as much. The Ni Ryuu didn't need both blows to land to work. If the first kick was blocked, he could still land the second. If the first landed, an aware enough enemy could still avoid the second.

However both kicks landing in succession was meant to dim the lights.

Thor despite being staggered did not go down though, instead lifting his leg up high and trying to stomp down on Naruto just as his feet touched back down onto the ground, "Shijuu no Tatsumaki (Quadruple Tornado)!"

Naruto moved and Thor's foot descended hard enough to break into the floor underneath where it touched, 'Okay… I one-two kicked him in the back of the head this time and all that made him do was stumble.' Feeling a tapping on the back of his head, Naruto turned slightly to see Tochumaru who then ducked back into his bag, "Oh, duh."

"Don't let him out of your sight for a second Thor." Freya warned the Seventh Fist, "Stop using such heavy attacks." Every time he missed he gave Naruto the chance to leave his line of sight. Freya knew firsthand that giving Naruto even a moment to operate when you couldn't see him was dangerous, "You don't need to go for all of your best techniques. Just use what will land."

Cracking his neck, Thor rolled his head around to work the kinks out as his face definitely showed the effects of taking a pair of heavy attacks like that as he spit blood onto the ground, "This is why I joined Ragnarok, a chance to get into more street fights against real martial artists! Not showing my best skills? How will anyone ever see Combat Sumo as the best if I don't show my power?"

Reaching into the top of his bag, Naruto felt the weight of his chain slip into his hand. Bidding Tochumaru a mental thanks for making it so easy for him, he yanked his manriki-gusari out and opened his arms to hold it at the fullest length that he could to show its length.

Thor raised an eyebrow but scoffed anyway at Naruto pulling out armaments, "Tch, a weapon? What kind of fighter are you?"

"A ninja!" Naruto, Kenichi, Takeda, Tenten, Miu, and even Freya (though to a less audible extent) said as Naruto gripped his weapon properly and began swinging the chain.

"Not that it matters." Thor said, setting himself down in a Sumo stance ready to charge, "I've told you once I've told you again, you can hit me all day, even with that. You'll never get enough force that can actually hurt me."

The speed of the weight swinging on the end of the chain then instantly picked up to the sight of a formless blur before Naruto sent it out, smashing the end of it into Thor's powerful stomach, the widest target that he could hit. Thor let out a grunt but otherwise didn't stir. Without even reeling the weight back in, Naruto spun in place and whipped the end of the weapon around to slam off the side of Thor's head.

Snorting like an angered bull, Thor stumbled, but kept his footing as blood started trickling from the side of his head, "That's enough from you!" On the warpath, he charged straight ahead at Naruto, knowing that his strength outmatched his. If he hit Naruto one time everything would change and he knew it.

This time, Naruto did reel the weight back in as Thor lifted his hand for a downward palm slap attack. The weight and the chain wrapped around his attacking hand allowing Naruto to drag it to the floor prematurely forcing it to miss, 'Can't let him hit me…' Naruto thought to himself as he pulled the chain tight, feeling as if he'd lassoed an unruly animal.

Despite being bound and held, Thor smirked to himself as his fist wrapped around the tightened chain, "This'll do." With a mighty twist, the powerful young man pulled Naruto clear off of his feet and yanked him his way before swinging him around in a circle overhead, "Amiuchi (Fisherman's Throw)!"

"Holy shit!" Takeda exclaimed, seeing Naruto holding onto his chain like a kite in a windstorm, "He's still that strong even after all of this?"

"Of course I am!" Thor shouted as he continued to swing Naruto's chain with the blond attached to the other end, "You think that just because I couldn't touch him I couldn't use Sumo techniques? What do you think Combat Sumo implies? I've adjusted my Sumo moves to deal with all sorts of opponents, even people like him! Now fly!"

Thor let go of his grip on Naruto's chain, swinging off of the upper level bridge, "Crap-crap-crap-crap-crap!" It was still wrapped around his arm however, and Naruto had a death grip on it. He'd be damned if he let himself be sent flying today. He swung underneath the bridge until he reached the underside and twisted his body to kick off of it with double the force that he'd originally been tossed with. Thor still hadn't untangled his arm from the tight chain, so he still had an anchor point.

With momentum and surprise due to being out of Thor's sight, Naruto went back up and over the other side, only this time he was in control. It was a hell of a slingshot ride, but this time he generated enough force to send Thor stumbling to the other side, leaning over the railing dangerously, "Whoa!"

Naruto held on tight until the tips of his toes touched the ceiling of a kiosk, "What the hell?" He was surprised, because the chain wasn't supposed to be that long. It was eight feet long end-to end. Thor was well over six feet tall and was hanging over the railing, he himself topped out at five-six, and the kiosk was seven feet off of the ground, 'Huh, that _does_ make sense I guess.'

Looking up, Naruto locked eyes with Thor and narrowed his eyes before twisting and putting every muscle in his entire body behind forcefully yanking the compromised sumo over the edge with a big shout of effort. He could move around more than 100 kilograms easily, and while Thor weighed significantly more, he was also leaning off-balance. It was child's play to do the rest.

He fell the full two stories and slammed forcefully off of the ground, landing flat on his back with no bounce, "Ugh…" It took a twenty-foot fall that planted Thor straight on his upper back, shoulders, neck, and the back of his head… and he was still alive and making noise.

Everyone stopped fighting mid-move and just stared in astonishment. Freya's face held an expression of surprise at the quick boost in skill that Naruto had shown with his weapon of choice since they'd first met, 'He gained that much skill with the manriki-gusari in this much time?'

It wasn't like he'd been bad at using it the last time they'd fought, but he seemed more comfortable with it this time. He thought nothing of dropping it and resorting back to his fists when he hit a wall so to speak in their last encounter, but this time even when it didn't seem to be working he stuck with it and managed to win with it.

Even Naruto was surprised by what had just occurred… and he'd been the one to execute the offending action. Part of him expected Thor to pull him right back up instead of letting him jerk him down, "…Should I name that?" Looking around he felt significantly self-conscious at all of the blank stares he was getting. He wasn't used to it for the most part, "What?"

It was quiet at first, but then half of the students on the floor cheered loudly, throwing their hands in the air victoriously and quite thoroughly scaring the hell out of Naruto at first.

"Naruto, you actually did it?" Takeda wondered aloud, scratching his head as he and Kenichi walked up to the kiosk that Naruto was still standing on top of, "But I thought he was too big to hurt with regular attacks?"

"What part of that last move was regular?" Kenichi asked dryly, looking at the downed Thor who was probably suffering greatly, "That was really dangerous." Though to be fair, Thor threw Naruto over the edge first.

"Who cares?" Takeda said with a laugh as he gave Kenichi a hard, good-natured pat on the back, "That's another Fist down. This is incredible! It's getting me all fired up to try and take my own shot at 'em if one comes my way."

With a sigh, Naruto sat down on top of the kiosk before laying down flat on his belly and staring down at the floor of the mall, "Thor." He said due to the close proximity of the Combat Sumo practitioner, "Sorry about the whole slamming you from the second story thing, but it was you or me… and I like me a lot better than you."

All of that, and he _still_ didn't render Thor unconscious. How tough was that guy?

"You beat me." Thor said to Naruto through all of the cheering from the victorious side, staring straight up at the ceiling from where he was laying on the floor, "You moved a sumo wrestler and threw him off of his feet. My Combat Sumo was defeated by your Ninjutsu."

"Well don't say it like Ninjutsu is just inherently better than Sumo." Naruto said, trying to console Thor a bit despite the heated battle they'd just had, "If it makes you feel better just consider it as me being better than you!" Yes, so tactful and empathetic wasn't he?

"I failed my ambition of making Combat Sumo seen as the best style in the world."

From how dejected Thor was, Naruto was starting to feel bad. Instead of bloviating and preening like a peacock as he usually would have against a jerk opponent he was actually feeling bad about winning a fight. It wasn't like the man had pissed him off or seemed to be a bad person in the least. They were just on opposite sides. Thor was with Ragnarok, and Naruto wanted Ragnarok to, politely as possible of course, fuck off and leave his friends alone.

"Look, you're gonna lose some fights." Naruto tried to reason, "I lost. I lost a lot." He still lost his share, but ego would not allow him to admit that much unless absolutely necessary, "Winning fights and succeeding all of the time doesn't make you tough, it's what you do when you get beaten or lose that shows how strong you are."

"Hmm…" Thor grunted in thought to himself, shutting his eyes as he kept trying to regain enough strength to get back up, "What kind of group are you people?" He asked to the amassed martial artists. Such a diversity of people, and that was just from what he'd seen in the meeting.

"We're not really much of a group." Kenichi admitted abashedly, "Really, if the whole Ragnarok thing hadn't happened most of us probably wouldn't even be friends right now. But we had to come together to have a chance, and I do see all of these guys; Takeda-senpai, Ukita-senpai, Naruto-san, as my friends! Oh, Miu-san!" He exclaimed upon seeing the friend that he'd tried to keep out of the fray earlier. Quite clearly his endeavor had failed, "Uh hi."

"You've got a lot of explaining to do about why you didn't think you could tell me about this." Miu said with her hands firmly planted on her hips, making Kenichi feel small until she turned to Naruto, "You too Naruto-kun. You knew this was going to happen."

"Oi, I knew about 10% of this was going to happen at most." Naruto defended, still leaning over the edge of the kiosk with Tochumaru sitting on top of his head once more, "Don't you put that evil on me Miu-chan."

She still looked up at him, "I'm kind of upset with you too. How come you didn't tell us you had other friends like that Tenten girl and that other Shika-person she was trying to call earlier?" Speaking of whom, Tenten had somehow slipped away in the middle of the fracas. But the point still stood.

"Because you'd never have met any of them if this stuff didn't happen." He and Shikamaru probably never would have met Tenten either had none of this ever happened, so there was a silver-lining behind that cloud at least.

"That's a terrible excuse Naruto-san."

"Kenichi! I don't need my friends telling me how to link up my other friends with my other friends!"

The bickering carried on for a while and Thor just chuckled to himself despite his situation as he picked himself up and walked himself away, "Not just a bunch of fighters, but friends banding together huh? I like the way that sounds."

XxX

Back in his regular street clothes, Tanimoto Natsu, or Hermit, looked down on the culminating battle while sneering at the end-over-end retreat of Loki's forces. He was supposed to have assembled more obedient and disciplined members of the gang than most others that kept underlings, but apparently without their 'esteemed' leader calling the shots they were just as useless as any other run-of-the-mill punks.

Even if he wanted to destroy those idiots that walked into that meeting room today for wasting his time, he wasn't going to fight Loki's gang's stupid battles unless he had to. Surrounding himself with incompetence wasn't going to make him stronger, which was why he didn't have any underlings.

Thor had been defeated by that blundering loudmouthed ninja Uzumaki Naruto. After beating Nanjo Kisara he'd deemed it to be a fluke from Naruto's having fought her once before, but the results of the 'once-before' fight seemed to be the outcome that had been a fluke when she'd broken his arm. He didn't know what extent it went to, but for now anyway he seemed to be the real-deal.

That wasn't what had truly piqued his interest about what he'd seen today though.

If his eyes hadn't been deceiving him, he swore that Shirahama Kenichi had used multiple Chinese Kenpo moves from a different form than his, both today and the last time he'd seen him at the career fair for school. The first time might have been just a trick on his eyes, but he definitely saw it here. For a moment he swore that Kenichi had pulled out an attack starting with a windmill motion of his arm before striking.

It was akin to how he would start a few of his own attacks with _his_ known forms of Chinese Kenpo.

That just made him not like the affable young man all the more. Naruto was much louder, but he could ignore that. It seemed like something about Kenichi was just forcing him to pay attention, the fact that he was so unremarkable.

And the fact that he was apparently a studious practitioner of Chinese Kempo forms along with the other styles he integrated into his fighting sealed things for him. He was going to find an opportunity to rightly confront and break that boy.

As he groused and pondered to himself he found the curious sight of a half-sleepy looking guy with a spiky pineapple of a ponytail walking the opposite direction towards him, dragging a gagged Loki that was tied up in tons of metal wire behind him on the floor.

Tanimoto just watched him after he walked past and kicked Loki onto the downward-going escalator before going off as if he hadn't been there to begin with.

XxX

A huge gasp came from the Ragnarok contingent and a massive cry of 'Loki-sama!' came from Number 20 as Shikamaru had put Loki's tied up form on the escalator heading down to send him to the first floor in the middle of everything.

With nothing more than a shrug to himself as the enemy group began freaking out and retreating at the sight of their defenseless leader he just walked away, sparing a glance down to Naruto and company to give the yellow-headed one a subtle upward nod.

His attempt to look cool and simultaneously get out of there without attracting a stitch of attention failed when Niijima and Ukita appeared, the former standing on the railing and shouting loudly while pointing at Shikamaru.

"Behold, the mind that anticipated the treachery of 'Strategist' Loki!" Niijima cried, getting Shikamaru to cringe when he realized that eyes were on him, "Your new Proxy General, Shikamaru!" And the worst thing that Shikamaru could have ever imagined happened. It caught on. They actually started cheering for him.

Why wouldn't they? Because of him apparently, a Fist was taken down and his dirty trick of sabotaging and ambushing a peaceful sitdown failed where it mattered.

Meeting him up on the second level where he was desperately slumped against a bench and cursing his luck at getting involved when he swore to himself that he wouldn't, Tenten gave him a few pats on the back to try and console him, "There, there." She said lamely, "Uh… we're all in this together?"

"I didn't want to be in this at all." Shikamaru groaned, still very depressed despite completely routing the enemy, "Man…"

"Well look at it this way." Tenten offered with a smile, "At least they still don't know that we're supposed to be ninjas." Hearing a clearing of a throat, Tenten turned around to face Freya of all people standing there looking at her with an unreadable expression, "Freya-chan."

Freya barely regarded her with a nod before looking between her and Shikamaru, "So this is the side you've chosen?"

"Crap. I so don't want to fight someone I didn't prepare for, especially a Fist." Shikamaru muttered quietly to himself and to Tenten who gulped and decided to face her fate.

"It's a long story that you'd never believe…" The former Valkyrie said dully, "…But yes. We have to stick together. The three of us are all that we've got." As cryptic as that was, it was slowly starting to become the accepted mantra for Tenten, Shikamaru, and Naruto. Especially accepted by the first two who knew and accepted what the third one didn't.

"It doesn't seem like that's the case any longer." Freya said, alluding to all of the people currently cheering as if they'd won a championship or something, "Uzumaki won amnesty for you, and the Valkyries aren't here to begin with, so you won't receive the deserter's punishment for leaving the team."

The brown-haired girl went wide-eyed at that bit of news, expecting a good old-fashioned jump out, "Wait, wait, wait, you're going to break the rules because Naruto beat Thor? Why?"

"Looking a gift horse in the mouth are we?" Freya replied, holding up a hand when Tenten was about to explain herself, "You were welcome as one of us, but you never seemed like you truly trusted us. You kept to yourself and seemed to be hiding something, but you were a good member of the team. If nothing else I hope that you're at least happy."

She put on a cold front, but Freya really did care about all of her subordinates. Tenten had been one. Even if she'd been relatively new to the town and to the gang she had been exceptional with her weapons of choice and had always done right by the Third Fist right until she left, "I'm getting there I think."

"Good." Freya replied earnestly before turning to walk away. The little moment she had been having with Tenten was over, "And let Uzumaki know that I'll deal with him soon enough. For now we need to figure out what to do about Loki's treachery. He tried to use us like pieces on a game board for his little trap that tarnished Odin's name today and used the rest of us like pieces on a game board to try and keep your friends in position for his goons."

"She was… nicer than I expected." Shikamaru said as the powerful staff-user departed from their presence. So did that mean that they'd won this one today, "But this isn't over yet is it?"

"Oh God no." Tenten said with a cringe once reality set in again, "You'd better start putting that big brain to work on what we know about the other Fists, because this isn't going to stop until Odin says so."

Shikamaru just let out one more desperate groan as he and Tenten started making their way to one of the exits, "I'm not getting out of bed until Monday. I'm not built for this crap."

* * *

**We're just about getting to the part that I think is going to be a ton of fun, both for me and for you if you happen to be a fan of this story. I'm going to bring the heat, and you'd better watch out or you might receive third-degree burns!**

**Alright, whatever, you can go on and get out of here now. I know you want to. Go on, beat it.**

**I'll just go do productive stuff now. Kenchi out.**


	10. Hitting the Road

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I'm going to buy Kris Humphries' time machine off of him. The man said that it was 'dope', so it has to work right? Maurice said it was ready. I've got a world to change.

**Chapter 10: Hitting the Road**

* * *

The weekend.

It was a Saturday afternoon. No school until Monday meant training at Ryouzanpaku over the weekend for Naruto, only going home to sleep at night before making his way back over at sunrise to do it all over again on Sunday.

This normally would have been per Naruto's scheduled arrangement with Kousaka Shigure, who was and would continue to be conspicuous by her absence for the whole damned weekend.

Let it be known that Uzumaki Naruto was in no way, shape, or form down with being ditched. Especially by his enigmatic yet sexy female sensei who was meant to teach him weapons etiquette and skills.

"How the hell is she going to just leave and not say anything?" Naruto said, sounding rather testy as he practiced his own manriki-gusari techniques outside on the lawn of the Ryouzanpaku property. Speed and accuracy with the chain attacks were paramount for growth with the tool according to Shigure, thus without her around he was still working on that, "I mean she can break into my house, set off all of my traps, and scare the hell out of my friends to give me my stuff back, but she can't do it to say she'll be gone for a few days?"

"Maybe it slipped her mind?" Kenichi offered tensely, standing in a very awkward bent-kneed position with his arms held straight out. A balance exercise with pots resting on his knees, his outstretched arms, and the top of his head, "Shigure-sensei really seems like she has a lot on her mind most of the time."

"She can pick up a phone and call me." Naruto groused, in the midst of his own exercise, "…Leave a message or something. Damn. I came here for nothing this weekend."

"You've got the machine. The 'Ninja-matic'."

"Okay, I know Akisame calls it that because he made it for me to use, but I hate that name."

A small field had been designed at Shigure's request by Akisame comprised of a field of dozens of six-foot poles moving up and down with barely enough space on them for Naruto to fit the front balls of one foot on them.

Around this little set up there were taller poles that moved independently and swung multiple sandbags around the 'field', and bullseyes would randomly pop up all over for him to take shots at. Evasion and attack, those were the points that this machine stressed.

It was portable, adjustable, and the sick thing about it wasn't just that he'd made it on just two days notice some time back, it was that Akisame probably salivated at the prospect of building that human torture device to begin with. He could still hear how proud the casual Jujitsu master was upon unveiling his creation now.

"_This Naruto, is a machine of my own creation meant to work on your speed and reaction time. Go on, test it out."_

And he watched him like a hawk until he did just that. It was eerie, the sense of satisfaction he had as he watched Naruto struggle through the course. And he had Shigure to thank for it to begin with.

Walking outside to check over the progress of his student, Kensei nodded in satisfaction at what he saw, "Good Kenichi. Hold that position for ten more minutes and we can begin technique training." He then looked over at Naruto and shrugged, "I'm not your master so keep on doing… whatever you think you should be doing."

"Man…"

"Don't be so hard on her in your mind." The oddly wise yet diminutive master of the Chinese styles urged the young ninja, "Shigure-don is a master, true, but she is still extremely young. You're honestly the first person she's ever taught this completely. Her first true disciple."

"So Shigure didn't leave instructions, or a message, or anything?" Naruto asked, still extremely put off at his master's absence even as he worked to dodge, "Where'd she go by the way?"

"It's personal I'm afraid." Kensei said, choosing to sit awkwardly against the strange practice machine Naruto was using for his training so that he could look at some girlie magazines while waiting for the rest of Kenichi's time to elapse, "You would have to ask her, but I don't think she would tell you just yet."

The group settled into a silence until Naruto spoke up, "Uh, Kensei?" Naruto asked as he kept diligently dodging from point to point, taking shots at the targets as they appeared.

"Yes Naruto?" That was strange. The boy never asked him anything, especially as tentatively as that.

"…I can't mess with the settings from up here, and Akisame built this thing so that I can't bail on it…" Only someone from the outside could adjust the speed and difficulty in any way. All Naruto could do was start it and then jump on, "Would you mind-?"

"Oh certainly." Kensei said, reaching up to twist a dial clockwise, "There you go. Just because your sensei isn't present, that gives you no excuse to slack off. I like that work ethic."

"No! I wanted you to turn it off so I could get down and do something else!" Naruto bellowed as the speed of the machine picked up, "I've been on here for forty-five minutes already! This is boring!"

"If you're bored then it's clear that you're not going fast enough. Here." Without even looking, the Chinese Kenpo master reached his hand up and turned the dial another speed setting forward, "Shigure-don will thank me when she returns." Preferably by allowing him to take some rather candid pictures of her less than fully clothed without trying to maim him afterwards.

He blissfully ignored the sound of sandbags periodically smacking off of Naruto's body and the curses coming his way from the very same boy.

The next few minutes weren't so bad for Kenichi when it came to the pain of his workout, because to occupy his mind during his exercise he had his eye drawn to Naruto playing one hell of a survival game with heavy-loaded sandbags while trying to counter on the move.

At least until Sakaki walked outside with a bag over his shoulder. He saw Naruto and made a beeline for the machine, clicking it off and allowing it to slow and then stop, letting Naruto stop and gather his breath. There was a deity out there somewhere looking out for him.

Then he found himself plucked up by the heavy bag he always wore and found that Sakaki had grabbed him and was on his way out, "I'm taking the ninja kid for a bit since I won't be training Kenichi today!" He yelled for the benefit of the others to know, "Gotta run some errands!"

"Sakaki-shishou?" Kenichi asked confusedly as he saw his Karate master haul his friend elsewhere, "Why would he take Naruto-san to run an errand? He doesn't even live here."

"He's a disciple of this dojo even if his code won't allow him to acknowledge it and he doesn't live here like you to do chores." Kensei said, sparing nothing more than a glance their way before getting back to his all-crucial reading, "So he _can_ be asked to do certain things like that out of respect for the other masters here."

"But Naruto doesn't respect anyone… even most of the masters here." He had a healthy fear of them, and he respected their skills. He didn't necessarily respect them as people however, as evidenced by the indignant cry from Naruto who was taken into the shed so that they could get Sakaki's motorcycle.

"Why the hell do I have to run errands with you Karate Bum? I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

"Shut up kid! Sit back and enjoy the trip would you?"

"Can I change into street clothes first?"

Kensei lowered his magazine long enough to look over at Kenichi, "Your exercise is almost done. Would you like to go with them if you're that concerned about it?"

"No, no! This is fine!" Kenichi said a little louder than necessary. Errands with Sakaki sounded like nothing but trouble. If it was to get groceries or something, how was he going to stop the man from spending the whole food stipend on booze? And that was just for starters.

"All of my hate!" Naruto's voice was barely heard over the sound of the motorcycle engine revving. Plunked down in the sidecar with a helmet on his head they drove straight out of the main gate with the sulking ninja and the hot-tempered Karate master off to do whatever.

What kind of god-awful errand would this wind up being?

XxX

(Ragnarok Hideout)

The smack of a fist sent the Fourth Fist of Ragnarok Loki flying back into a pile of wooden crates. How one's fortunes could so quickly turn. He couldn't hide forever. Even for him, it had to have been something that he had anticipated.

Still, it didn't make the punishment for the treachery against his comrades any more pleasant to endure.

"Hermit I must say, you are in rare form today." The bespectacled Odin remarked from his cushy chair as the hooded Sixth Fist glared down Loki, waiting for him to get back up so that the beatdown could continue, "Well done. Anyone else?"

A muscular young man with spiky blonde hair stood off to the side watching passively while blowing bubbles with gum. He wore a sleeveless white shirt under an open sleeveless red jacket and blue jeans. On his pair of black gloves he had the roman numerals 'II' to signify his status as the Second Fist, but he took no part in the beatdown.

"Sure." Kisara said out of nowhere before jumping over Hermit to deliver a kick to Loki's face just as he had gotten back up, "I never really liked Loki much anyway." She said with a smirk, holding her hand on her beret from her jump, "You got tied up _after_ trying to pull your stupid scheme. How embarrassing." She said as she planted her foot on his back, "You're lucky Freya-chan isn't here since she's off training. She _really _isn't happy with you."

"You bastards." The 'tactician' spat venomously, "None of you know anything."

"Knowing anything doesn't have anything to do with not appreciating being used like a pawn." Odin fired back at him as Hermit stood scowling and crossing his arms over his chest, "Or at least attempting to use the others like pawns since you failed. Did you really think that a lack of respect like that to the rest of the Fists was alright? Because of your actions you not only tainted my word, but you're partially responsible for Thor's defeat."

Loki didn't say anything else, clenching his fists on the ground, something that Kisara took as him giving her another reason to deliver another heavy kick to him.

"Stop." Odin's word kept her from lowering the boom on him again, motioning for her to move away and allow him some space, "Loki, I'm of the mind that you don't find my directions to be very leader-worthy. Now I'll admit to not being much of a 'strategist' like yourself, but I'm getting the distinct impression that you believe you'd do a better job as Ragnarok's head. Would you by chance like to be the First Fist in my stead?"

"You can't be serious." A humorless laugh came from the beaten silver-haired young man, "Putting your place on the line? And I suppose you're going to say that all I have to do to take it is to beat you one-on-one."

"Is it any worse than taking a beating now from the others?"

There was a point to that Loki had to admit. The 'almighty' Odin wanted to kick the dog while it was down? That was just fine.

"You really want me to fight you?" Loki asked, standing in his Spear Hand Karate stance, his arms bent and moving up and down in preparation to strike, "Heh, you really must take me for a fool." With that, instead of moving to attack, with the first opportunity he had to flee he took it, only to find himself grabbed by the back of his trench coat before he reached the door.

Now forced to fight or suffer further for cowardice, with a pinch of fear in his heart Loki turned and attempted to strike out with his multifaceted attack, "Daigo Shougeki Ken (Fifth Impact Punch)!" But every single blow he attempted against Odin was easily neutralized and deflected, no matter what angle he tried to take in making his move.

'Why can't I hit him? I can't even touch him! He's not even trying!' Loki thought as his attacks grew more panicked and frantic. Every move was stopped before it even got in range of being dangerous, and Odin wasn't even putting any effort behind it, 'He's as cool as a cucumber!' Due to his focus on how Odin was defending he never noticed the slight shift of the First Fist's left foot.

"Yamatzuki."

Fists sank into Loki's belly and face at the same time, 'That's… a Karate attack like Shirahama's…' He thought to himself before he dropped to the floor and didn't get back up.

After allowing the man to hit the ground, Odin just stared down at him impassively from behind his glasses before reaching down to retrieve the gloves emblazoned with 'IV', "You're out." Loki couldn't hear him, but he'd get the message when he woke up, "I won't suffer betrayal lightly. Berserker?"

The strong, silent blond person in the room casually moved and grabbed Loki by his coat to drag him out of the warehouse while Odin retook his previous seat, seemingly back to a more amicable attitude now that he had managed to vent a bit.

"So…" Kisara said, now that the scary show of force from Odin was complete, "…I'm assuming Siegfried is the Fourth Fist now."

"We'll see." Odin said, "I can't very well present him with a position that he's not here to receive can I?"

"And where is he anyway?" As Hermit grouchily pointed out, the proceedings were noticeably missing a well-dressed musician constantly singing while doling out an asskicking, "Thor's resting and healing, Freya's training, and you just got rid of Loki."

True enough, for a time meant to punish Loki, only half of the Fists had been present for it.

Perhaps Siegfried was looking to punish someone else?

XxX

(With Naruto and Sakaki – Outside of Town – On the Road)

Naruto didn't know what fear was all about until then. He really didn't. He thought he'd faced it down already, but he really hadn't.

No, he didn't know true fear until he was forced to ride sidecar on a chopper speeding down a Japanese highway and being driven by Sakaki Shio, who may or may not have had a few adult beverages in him at the time.

"I don't want to die!" Naruto screamed, holding on for dear life as the motorcycle weaved in and out of traffic, dodging several tractor-trailer trucks that honked their horns at the belligerent driving, "There's so much stuff I never got to do! I never kissed a girl! I never learned how to play bass! I'm not a kage yet!"

"You've got on a helmet, you'll be fine." Sakaki insisted, focusing on getting ahead of _every_ car he saw in front of him on the highway. He'd be damned if any vehicle beat him to whatever destination they were each trying to get to, "Alright kid, I guess I can tell you now, we're not going on an errand."

"Gee really?" Naruto asked sarcastically only to get back to fearing for his life after his involuntary smartass tic passed, "I didn't notice after the sign we passed that told us we were ten miles out of town."

If he noticed it, Sakaki didn't rise to it for once, "Nope. This is a job."

Naruto actually perked up at hearing that, "Like a mission?"

"Eh, same thing I guess." He said before taking his hand off of a handlebar to scratch at his head, "Well, it's something of a bounty hunt really."

"_You're_ a bounty hunter?"

From the astonished sound of Naruto's voice, Sakaki figured he was impressed and preened as best he could while driving the motorcycle, "It's just one thing I can do to pay a few bills."

"_You_ pay bills?"

Now this time the incredulous tone was insulting whether it was meant to be or not. The odds on either or were probably dead-even.

"Alright listen up. The person I'm after is a hired assassin targeting prominent citizens." Sakaki said, grumpily getting down to brass tacks, "They kill their targets without using guns, but they've never been seen. Either way they're terrorizing a bigger city nearby, and they're running down a list of who's who in the community."

Really? This was big time. So much so that Naruto had to gulp in a bit of concern, "So if you're on this job to stop this person why are you bringing me? You're a master."

"True, true. But I figure if I've got the resource of a living, breathing would-be assassin walking around the dojo property every damn day I might as well use him right?" The scar-faced man gave Naruto a hard pat on the back, "You're my secret weapon to catch this guy no sweat kid! Cheer up!" He said before letting out some scary, barking laughter.

What he did not mention was that the only reason he decided to go through with his 'brilliant' idea of picking Naruto's brain for any help he might or might not be able to provide was because Shigure was out of town for a personal reason, and she couldn't silently rage on him for thinking of putting her primary charge in danger.

If she had been there he would never have done it. He didn't need that drama. But she wasn't, and there they were en route to some trouble.

"Alright kid, let's get to Yokohama quick enough that we can get started before sundown!"

"Hey! Hey! Stop weaving and slow down! I'm gonna-! Blargh!"

"There better not be a speck of puke on the bike brat!"

XxX

(Back in Town – Naruto's House)

While Kenichi was still training, Miu had a bit of free time after she'd finished her chores for that afternoon. She'd meant to ask Naruto some things once she was done and had a free moment, but Sakaki had plucked him up and taken him elsewhere for whatever reason.

Sakaki had cited 'errands' as the reason for their departure, but that was grossly false because she was the only person there that really ran any real errands for the dojo.

Either way, that gave her some time to go and do something else until she had to go home and prepare dinner that evening, "This seems like the place." Miu said to herself, looking at a map that had been made for her upon request by the only other person at Ryouzanpaku that knew where Naruto lived, "It's really helpful that Shigure-san wrote this out for me before she left."

Naruto's house was actually kind of nice. Just a quaint little two-story home closely nestled in a neighborhood between two others with a fenced off front yard and back. Shrugging to herself, Miu hopped the fence only to land and quickly have to dodge to the side to avoid getting caught in a snare trap by the tree out front.

This led to her tripping a second wire in the grass that set off several spring-loaded kunai from a dropdown case on a branch in the same tree that she had to roll to avoid getting impaled by, "What in the world?"

Her eyes were now looking closely for any other trap, and she managed to point out several more that she had to carefully step around and over to keep from setting them off. For some reason there seemed like there should have been more, but she was thankful that there weren't.

'Why is Naruto-kun's house booby tra-?' She then stopped her train of thought and bopped herself playfully on the noggin, "Oh, nevermind, silly question."

Eventually she reached the front door and rang the doorbell before flinching, thinking that something would drop down or blow up or shock her only for nothing to occur. Nothing except for Shikamaru opening the door with a pronounced frown on his face.

He lazily looked at Miu, looked over her shoulder at the several sprung traps, and back to Miu before sighing and moving aside to let her in, "Great. One of us is going to have to reset all of those later and the ones that Kousaka's mouse tripped the other day. Why didn't you just walk on the path?"

"You didn't trap the path?" Miu asked with a bit of a bewildered tilt to her head.

"Not really." Shikamaru said, scratching at his head, "Anyone trying to sneak into our house isn't going to just jog up to the front door." Huh… well that was valid… sort of, "Come on if you're coming in I guess."

Taking off her shoes just inside of the door, Miu followed Shikamaru through the foyer and to the living room where there was a shogi board set up and a rather impatient Tenten thoroughly losing at it.

Plopping back down in his chair across from Tenten and the board separating them on the table, Shikamaru made sure that she hadn't moved any of the pieces while he'd been gone before speaking, "Well come on. You had forever while I got up to open the door. Make a move."

"Shush." Tenten said, eyes glued firmly to the board before finally making her move, "There."

"Check." Shikamaru said without even moving anything.

"What?" Tenten looked at him in disbelief. How could he even tell? Not only had he not made a move for his turn yet, he hadn't even been looking at the board for her move, "I'm never asking you to play a game with me again." She replied once Shikamaru did actually make his move and reveal what he'd done, "So, Fuurinji-san. What are you doing here?"

Miu smiled as she sat down in a nearby seat and smoothed out her skirt, "Well Naruto-kun is supposed to be a good friend of mine and Kenichi-kun's, but we don't really know that much about him." They just recently found out where he lived from Shigure, "I was going to bring him too, but he was still training for today."

She wanted friends of Naruto's to be friends of hers, and since Tenten had already fought beside her in battle once already she figured there was just as good a chance of that happening as any.

"I don't know that much either." Tenten admitted with a shrug, "All I've got to go on is that he's a nice enough guy to let me live here, he's a ninja, he's tough, and he doesn't understand the word humility. I know more about Shikamaru here honestly, and I met them at the same time."

Shikamaru was usually there when he wasn't at school though. Naruto was always out doing something; training, or into this or that, so Tenten had spent more time with her fellow house guest than with the host.

Speaking of Shikamaru, he was thinking of the best way to explain how things were.

Other than Naruto he'd done his best to avoid keeping any connections. He was scared of letting certain things close to him become more common knowledge. He never showed it, but he was. And the thing that he feared, no one around him that he could talk to about it would understand.

Sure, he _could_ talk to Tenten about it now since she was in the same boat as him and Naruto; caught in an impossible scenario with nowhere to go and no one else to turn to but yourself (and now each other).

Oh what the hell? He highly doubted that anything he'd say to Miu would get back to Konoha to somehow let them know that they hadn't died as was probably expected, so it wouldn't lead to his death.

And she was kind of helpful in helping Tenten and unknowingly working with his plan that helped them put down the bad guys the other day at the mall. You had to give a little to get a little in return.

"Alright, here's the thing." Shikamaru started to say, pointing at himself and Tenten, "Naruto, Tenten, and I were all raised to be ninjas since the age of five. Our parents were or are ninjas, so they're making sure it carries on down the line. It's one of the ways that Ninjutsu has survived since ninjas became kind of obsolete."

Miu nodded, following along so far, "Uh huh. I knew that. Naruto-kun told us some of it and grandfather figured as much about the rest." She then listed off two more things on her fingers, "You all graduated, and your current mission has something to do with stealing something from Ryouzanpaku."

At that, Shikamaru and Tenten looked at each other and then back to Miu, which she didn't understand. It had been the entire basis of the establishment of Naruto's relationship with her or anyone else affiliated with Ryouzanpaku.

He wanted something from there for his mission, he was willing to infiltrate and steal from them to obtain it. That was what they knew about him. That was why they had originally met.

"Right?" Miu asked for confirmation purposes. Naruto had told her this. It was ingrained in her brain before she even knew his name, "…Did he lie to me?" Her query came out more demurely than she probably wanted to sound, but it could have happened. Ninjas were supposed to be all about deception.

"He didn't lie." Shikamaru said, "When Naruto and I were originally sent out from the Homeland, they told us that we were supposed to obtain something, and it turned out that the last known location to begin looking for what we were after was only known as 'Ryouzanpaku'."

Not seeing what required them to hesitate telling her this much, Miu just sat patiently and listened to what was being told to her. Shrugging her shoulders she told Shikamaru that she'd already processed the information and was waiting on the heart of the issue.

Shikamaru did not choose to disappoint, "We were twelve." He explained, and it didn't get through to Miu yet, but the next part did, "A ninja in our clan isn't allowed to leave the island as a ninja until they're fifteen. That's when basic training is supposed to be complete and we're supposed to be formally inducted as genin."

'Their' clan? Really now? "So you're relatives?"

No. No, no, no. That was a story in of itself.

Tenten smiled and shook her head. This was the first part of the modern history classes that they had to take, to learn of their culture, "When the golden age of the ninjas began to scale down, ninja clans were still family-based and pledged allegiance to certain noble families. All the way up to the Meiji Restoration things stayed that way. When the old ways were being phased out and nobility was ending some of the smarter clans started seeing the way that things were going."

"Instead of offering their clan's services to another troublesome feudal lord that would just lose their power in a matter of years and put them back at square one, these ones decided to band together and fight for themselves." Shikamaru continued to explain, "My family is one of the smaller old clans that decided to join up with the others around one hundred years ago. But nowadays it's not just families. Konohagakure recruited orphans from all over the world."

Tenten lifted a hand and grinned for emphasis, "I'm one of those. No family. I got picked up when I was a little girl after the coolest woman I've ever met asked me if I wanted to come with her and learn to be a ninja. I didn't really know what I was signing up for at the time, but it was still kind of my choice."

"What does your clan want?" Miu asked, enraptured by the story. She felt like a little girl and could imagine all of it swimming in her head as she heard more and more, "I mean, they're a gathering place for Ninjutsu and its culture to be taught and passed down right? So it'll never die out?"

"It's not really as noble as you're trying to make it sound." Tenten said, resting her cheek in one hand as she remembered how cold and remote most of the whole thing had been, "But more or less, yes."

She still didn't get it though, "So if you guys are supposed to have rules and stuff, why did you leave earlier than you were supposed to?"

"Because we weren't good enough to be kept in the program and they sent us off to get rid of us." Shikamaru said with a bit of an edge to his voice. Not aimed at Miu, but aimed at his own fate, "The Ryouzanpaku thing was our first mission. Our very first mission. You guys are world-famous martial artists. I know the kage council of the homeland had to know that before they gave us our 'assignment' so why would you send two underage 'genin' to take any mission involving you guys? I wouldn't send a genin to sell you psychos cookies, let alone steal from you."

"They sent us off to die." Tenten said somberly, "My mission wasn't any simpler than trying to take on a bunch of masters as a genin. Mine would have taken a big chunk of my adult life if I ever got it done, I didn't have the skills for it to begin with, and if I failed a single step of it I'd have been killed or never would have seen the light of day again."

"That's just… but why?" Miu asked, eyes going wide in disbelief. They were children. They put their trust and belief in those people, and they fed them to the wolves. They put them out to sea with no life preserver, "That's awful!"

"It's because I just wasn't any good." Tenten said with a pronounced frown, "The only thing I really wound up being good at is marksmanship, and I guess that wasn't enough for them to invest anymore resources into training me. Every ninja can throw a few weapons."

She could throw _anything_ and hit what she was aiming at, but the only weapon they tested the students with were kunai and shuriken. Any fool ninja could hit a bullseye with a projectile.

"For me, I guess it was because I just didn't care about being a ninja." Shikamaru said as his own reason for his dismissal, "I just did it so my mom wouldn't be so troublesome to me. I was about to turn six when my parents asked me. I didn't know how big the question really was."

He never bought in to the whole 'for the lifestyle of the ninja' mindset that they'd had drilled into them. He just went along to get along, and only did enough to keep the instructors from busting his balls.

Clearly that wasn't the right attitude to have if he really wanted to be left alone.

"But what did Naruto-kun do?" Miu asked. They had pointed out their own guesses as to why they were unwanted, but none of that applied to Naruto. He was talented from what she had seen and felt when he'd given her fits from time to time, and he had all of the drive anyone could want out of someone his age, "Why wouldn't they want him?"

Shikamaru sighed and ran a hand through his black hair, "That's a tougher one. When we were little Naruto was top dog of our year for a while. But he didn't really do things the way the instructors liked. That started pissing people off when we started getting older and doing harder stuff… and then his parents were killed." He just shook his head at that, "That one really screwed him up."

It was all a matter of keeping up or shipping out. If you screwed up they'd warn you, if you kept doing it though they stopped paying attention altogether and turned their attention to others that they actually thought would graduate."

"Most of us with parents, even when they die we've got other family or something in our age group of students. Naruto didn't. And the instructors didn't have time for one kid, they had tons more to train. He tried to keep their attention by being way more out there than anyone else, but… eh." Shikamaru recalled,

And then there was the incident that came out of absolutely nowhere. The straw that broke the camel's back, at least for Naruto from what Shikamaru could think about in hindsight. The last spar that Naruto had ever fought before the end came. Sheesh.

But Shikamaru didn't like thinking about that. He knew for a fact that Naruto didn't, thus he didn't go there, "Eventually they told us we were graduating early and were getting called up to handle a special mission just for genin like us."

"How can you be sure that they really did what they did to you?" It couldn't be that they were that cold to children. Miu couldn't see it. It was the most heartbreaking thing she'd heard in years if it was true but she didn't want it to be, "The missions could be real."

"No…" Tenten said sadly, "In the classes of standard operating procedure we were taught that when we graduated and were sent home or let out into the world we'd be given a contact point. One contact for a genin to get missions from and give our results and progress reports to. Either a family member, or if you were an orphan it'd be another ninja. I didn't get one."

"Neither did we." Shikamaru said, "We were left all alone."

"The only reason we even ran into each other is because a few months ago I moved away from where I was dropped off far north." Tenten informed her, "Apparently Shikamaru and Naruto were dropped on the south end of Japan and they wandered here after they found out what Ryouzanpaku was supposed to mean."

"And we've been stuck here ever since." Shikamaru concluded, "Naruto doesn't get it. Actually, I think he does get it, but he's not going to back off from the mission. All the guy knows how to do is push, push, push… and he'll keep doing it until he gets killed."

That was why Shikamaru stopped going on the raids with him. They never worked. The situations they found themselves in got worse and worse as the masters grew more used to them. The only reason they hadn't been sent to jail for their actions were because the Ryouzanpaku masters never saw them as a threat.

It was like a male lion of a pride getting messed with by cubs. He'd humor them and 'play' while the cubs were taking it seriously until they pissed him off enough to the point that he'd swat them away like flies.

He gave it up for good after Apachai almost killed Naruto with an elbow strike _by accident_, but he could never get Naruto to do the same.

For some reason he had it in his head that he had something to prove. To himself, to Konoha, to his family. To someone, somewhere, he would never say. Still, it was there and if you looked hard enough you could see it as clear as day.

When he killed himself just doing his morning workout before school. When he killed himself doing his club activity afterschool. When he came home late at night after training at Ryouzanpaku clothes destroyed, covered in bruises and cuts, limping and wincing. And then he'd get up the next day and do it all over again.

"So yeah…" Shikamaru said, trying to bring things to a conclusion before they got uncomfortable to talk about, "That's basically-. Wait, what's the matter?"

Miu's wide eyes were tearing up as she had listened to the entire story from start to finish, "That's the saddest thing I've heard in years." It looked like she was a few moments away from bawling her eyes out. Great. Because that was the last thing they needed.

XxX

(With Naruto and Sakaki – Late Afternoon/Early Evening – Yokohama Chinatown)

"I need to start coming to Chinatown more." Naruto said as he patted the bag on his back fondly. He'd just stocked it with some special stuff that was ultra-cheap in Chinatown and he couldn't ignore it, "This place is awesome."

Cheap food, cheap explosives, lots of colors, scents, sounds, and all sorts of other interesting things you could see at any given time out there? Yes please, Naruto was a fan.

"Eh, it's alright." Sakaki said as he walked the sidewalks with his diminutive companion, "It's not like I can have any fun in this place dragging a kid along with me."

"I thought we were here to do a mission anyway." Naruto replied, a bit grated at Sakaki brushing him off like that.

The scar-faced Karate master rolled his eyes and gave Naruto a pat on the head hard enough that he swore his spine compressed, "You weren't saying that when you were haggling with that guy at the stand to buy out half of his inventory."

"I didn't buy that much. The bag isn't even full."

"Your stupid bag's never full."

"So?"

Rebuttal aside, Sakaki pulled out a crumpled paper with helpful things written on it by Kensei before he'd left that day, 'Why does everybody think bounty hunting isn't worth the effort?' He thought to himself as he directed them around with the instructions given to them, 'Seriously, this is going to be good money.' Feeling a poke at his arm he looked over at Naruto to see him saying something that he only caught the tail-end of, "What was that kid?"

"I said what exactly do you expect me to do to help you out?" Naruto repeated, holding his hands up behind his neck and squinting his eyes for no real reason, "Like what do you want from me? I'm supposed to actually do something here aren't I?"

"You're more like consult. Like hell you're actually fighting." Sakaki said gruffly, "If you got hurt here Shigure would try to take my head off. This isn't something I can let a disciple do and be considered responsible. I just want your help to get into an assassin's head. Where do you think he'll strike next? His focus has been in Chinatown."

"Why?"

"Triad leaders."

"That's all? So why are we stopping him?"

"Because he's killing them."

Naruto just stared at him strangely, but Sakaki didn't look back at him in return. If a bunch of criminals wanted to kill each other that wasn't much of a problem to him. As long as they were keeping regular folks out of it he didn't see why he had to give a crap.

Oh whatever. It was probably some kind of Katsujinken thing that brought Sakaki out there with the mere guise of a bounty job. He was probably just going to beat the guy up and arrest him even though for an assassin the bounty would be the same whether he was brought in to the police alive or dead.

"So come on kid. Where's he going to hit next?" Sakaki urged, snapping Naruto out of his own thoughts this time instead of the other way around, "He's hitting local bosses, and he's got a pretty good number of 'em already."

And Naruto had no idea how to approach this. The classroom had been a long, long time ago.

However, since it was the one-eyed man leading the blind in part, he figured that anything he would say would be infinitely better than saying nothing at all. It would at the very least allow Sakaki to look at him with some value attached.

"Ah…" Naruto said, hoping that he wasn't taking too long to answer. Come on! Say something that at least sounded smart, "…Find someone important that would know something more?"

"Like…?" Sakaki lead on, trying to get Naruto to be less vague. Seriously, they were on the clock here. They couldn't stay out forever without anyone other than Kensei knowing where they were and what they were doing, "…Like one of the businesses that the Triads try to shake down in this district?"

"Yes! That!" Naruto said a little bit louder than was needed as Sakaki filled in his own blank, "See! I know what I'm doing, just have a little faith 'ttebayo!" The uncomfortable laughter that he came out with to cover his own tracks didn't really instill the faith that he was hoping for.

Raising an eyebrow at the strange actions of an already admittedly strange kid, Sakaki just shook it off and started looking around, "So should we look around for any place in particular, or just go find a store?"

"Maybe we should go back to the fireworks stand first just in case." Making an about face to go back in the direction they came from, Naruto was snagged by his collar by Sakaki who would not let him go, "Okay, fine! No fireworks! I was just saying though. That guy'd probably tell me anything I wanted now."

"We're not going back so you can buy more stupid fireworks!" Instead of that plan of action, they walked past a food vendor's cart and Sakaki bluntly grabbed the poor man by his apron and lifted him off of the ground over his cart, "Hey, I know you know something about the Triad in Chinatown. Tell me everything you know!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Naruto said, jumping up on Sakaki's arms that remained firm with the added weight as if they were iron bars, "What the hell! Put the poor guy down! You're scaring the pants off of him!"

Affronted at the accusation, Sakaki dropped the vendor who ran off, forsaking his cart for the time being as the hulking Karate fighter rounded on his younger ninja tagalong, grabbing him by the back of his bag as if it were the scruff of his neck, "What do you mean I'm scaring him? I just asked him a question!"

"That's how you ask a question? You sounded like you were about to stuff him into his cart!"

"Well I'm a man you runt! And as a man, when you ask a question you put some bass in your voice!"

"There's a difference between putting some bass in your voice and putting people in the hospital you damn Karate Bum!"

"I'll put _you_ in the hospital!"

"Wouldn't be the first time would it?!"

The two butted heads and seemed ready to come to blows. Extremely one-sided blows where only one of them would probably feel any pain, but blows nonetheless. Eventually however, before this highly unfortunate situation could play itself out, the clearing of someone's throat got them to turn and face two young men that couldn't have been more than four years older than Naruto.

One had black hair reaching his back and wore a burgundy dress vest over a light blue dress shirt, open at the neck to show a gold chain, along with sunglasses on his forehead. The other had short brown hair with small glasses on his face and wore a white dress shirt with suspenders.

"Do you mind causing trouble somewhere else?" The black-haired one said with an irritated tone to their presence, "Nobody's got the patience for any of this crap tonight, so move along would you? You might get hurt."

"And who the hell are you two pricks?!" Sakaki bellowed as Naruto stared at them in thought while still being held off of the ground. Eventually he grabbed Sakaki's shoulder and whispered what he was thinking into his ear, putting a big, and extremely intimidating look on the face of the violent Karate master, "Oh. That actually sounds like a good, sensible idea kid."

"What idea?" The more levelheaded-seeming brown-haired one asked. Why did he feel such a complete sense of dread?

Sakaki set Naruto down and started cracking his knuckles, "I didn't think the Triads would come to _us_ instead of us finding them. But that's fine too. Take me to your boss or I'll beat the stuffing out of you both until you do."

Both younger men looked at each other before turning back to Sakaki in confusion, "We're not Triads. You're saying that you _don't_ work for the Triads?"

"Don't try to confuse me!" Sakaki shouted before moving to attack the poor, hapless men.

Meanwhile, Naruto had wisely slinked away and around the corner just as the sounds of the extremely quick fight started playing out in his ears.

"I'll pray for you both, but you really shouldn't lie to Karate Bum's face like that…" Naruto said to himself as he backed away from the corner, "…Or call him a criminal." Before he got too far however, he wound up bumping into some person smaller than himself, but they had barely budged, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." He said, turning around with a big grin.

The girl that he'd run into was far from impressed, either because he'd run into her to begin with, or for some other reason.

_Very_ attractive, she had blue eyes and dark blue hair done up in two upward and downward strands on both sides of her head with bangs slightly concealing her eyes and framing her face. And why was that red Chinese dress she wore so short and revealing?

"You're just gonna walk away from that like you weren't involved huh?" The girl said, not budging from in front of Naruto at all, "The Chinese Mafia isn't welcome in this part of Chinatown, why don't you get the message?"

Naruto pointed to himself as if to ask if she was referring to him, "But I'm not a Triad."

"So you're the out of town assassin running around?" The girl said before shaking her own head at the ludicrous nature of her own statement, "No, you're just a kid. And no one's ever even seen the assassin before. There's no way he'd be some dopey-looking schoolboy I'd catch turning around a corner."

"Dopey?" Naruto said, a bit put down at what he'd been called, "Hey what do you mean dopey? What's dopey about me?"

"Your eyes, your dyed hair, the loud way you talk. It all screams cocky delinquent." The girl said, pointing directly at Naruto sternly, "You'd better scoot on home before you get yourself hurt."

Okay, now he was getting pissed off. Nobody but him was allowed to run their mouth like that. Especially to him, "Who the hell do you think you are?" His hair was _not_ dyed.

"You really aren't from around here if you don't know me." Taking Naruto's defensive attitude as a challenge, the young Chinese girl held up a fist in front of her own face, "I'd tell you my name, but I'm probably about to hit you so hard you'll forget it anyway."

"…What?"

Naruto leaned his chin back just before an astute straight punch would have done its best to turn his jaw inside out. Batting his own opposite elbow to the inside arm of his attacker, Naruto spun through and back out of range, squaring off in a crouch with his hands on the ground, He eyed the girl carefully as she seemed to be surprised that he managed to get away so quickly.

'Holy crap that was fast!' Naruto thought to himself as he judged the distance that the girl had moved in just one step, 'That was the length of like two arms and she closed in with one step!'

Thank goodness for all of the fighting he'd done with Ragnarok to whip him back into 'fighting condition' instead of 'take-an-asskicking condition', the way he'd been when dealing solely with the Ryouzanpaku masters. Otherwise he might have reacted to that move the wrong way and cost himself.

On the other hand, the girl was stunned that he'd been able to slip her punch so cleanly. Well… she hadn't expected him to actually know how to fight, so maybe she threw the punch a little too sloppily.

"Oh, you're way faster than you look." The girl mentioned offhandedly, eliciting a tilt of the head and a vapid blink from Naruto, "Wait a minute!" She exclaimed at last, "Are you kidding me? What kind of fighting move was that even supposed to be? You parry and then run away out of range instead of attacking?"

"That means you were expecting me to hit you!" Naruto yelled back, "So why would I do it if you'd just block it or something? I got the hell out of there! I'm not getting countered like that!"

The young Chinese girl just thumbed at her cheek before settling back into her fighting stance, "Well now that I know you've got some skill behind you I'm not holding back."

Naruto just narrowed his eyes at her and smirked slightly, "Fine. Ladies first."

This was not a display of chivalry. Chivalry got you beaten up and sent to the hospital. He wanted to see her actually take the first step so that he could fool her with a feint and finish her quickly. He didn't have time for this crap. There was something to do that night and he wasn't going to let some random chick stand in his way because she thought he was Triad.

She wouldn't listen since she attacked him without him making the first move, so the quickest way to get this situation past him was to simply get her out of the way.

Fortunately for Naruto, she was just as impulsive as him but without the fighting style that required her to be a bit more reactionary in the moves she made like his did, because she took the first step. Naruto's feet were already aiming to send him straight down the pipe to knock her out in one quick blow.

"Tadayoudou (Straight Feint)!"

The girl's legs almost spread entirely apart, nearly allowing her to do a split to the ground in order to dodge Naruto's high-flying attack, "Tch, how annoying!" She watched Naruto slide to a stop before lifting up both of her hands and flying at him in return, "Yousou Ha!" With a trained swiftness she got close enough to swing her arms downward at him only to miss, 'He doesn't block attacks no matter what.'

It definitely wasn't his first choice of defense because he once again dodged her move and headed back into attack again. She was beginning to understand a bit about how he fought in her own mind. From the short engagement thus far, she felt that Naruto would attack and try to pressure an enemy into making a move before dodging the blow well enough to strike back harder and faster, preferably preemptive to an opponent mid-maneuver.

She wasn't entirely wrong, but she wasn't completely right either. He wasn't just someone that relied on pressure. He had a few extra tricks for enemies that would try to defend too much against him to keep from playing that game.

The girl's moves were smooth, blending strong punches intended to finish combinations along with with slick, looping kicks meant to make an enemy think too hard about the danger of them. But since Naruto dodged everything without trying to intercept her all he had to do was observe until she stopped pursuing and decided to make him push the action.

That was fine with him.

"Ha!" Naruto went for a single-armed hammer fist that the Chinese blocked with her forearm only to feel him brush past her arm and wind up directly behind her, "Kirikaeshi (Switchback)!" The sound of a chain jingling set off double alarms in her head, "Gotcha!"

'He was carrying a chain weapon!' And he was able to brandish it so quickly without her noticing?

He struck out at her as a diversion and took her back while looping the chain around her body. What a move! This was no rank amateur. He couldn't have been. That wasn't some street punk's chain, that was an actual weapon famous in martial arts.

'One chance!' She whirled around as fast as she could as the chain tightened and realized that if this failed she'd be at his mercy, "Tanpa (Single Grip)!" Placing one palm over the other she pushed them both out in a forceful strike that sent Naruto sliding back and freed her from being fully wrapped up by the chain.

Sliding back until he stopped himself by taking a knee, Naruto winced at the strike he'd taken to the chest. What a desperation move, and so simple in how it looked, but there was real force behind that blow. Naruto knew how to take heavy hits though, and his ability to brace and space out damage was second to none in his own humble opinion.

'What a tough boy.' The girl thought to herself with a pondering look directed his way. He took her hit but leapt back out of the way of enough of it to take nothing more than a nice little check from her palms.

Getting beaten up by devastatingly powerful people, if you learned nothing else from the experience, taught you how to properly take falls and how to better take a shot or two.

'She's really good. That was close.' She was better than some of the other tough people he'd been fighting. Better than Kisara and better than Thor. This wasn't going to be easy, 'I can't tell since we just started, but she might be Miu good. This could get ugly.'

If that were to happen it would be a bad scene, but even if she did have that much talent, there was one thing Miu had that she didn't. Miu knew a good chunk of his tricks in addition to being scarily good for a sixteen year old girl. Things that worked on her once had trouble working on her a second time, but the thing about that was that if something worked once… it still managed to work that one time, due to the element of surprise.

That was definitely something he had on this girl. She probably still had no clue as to what his intent was in the midst of a fight.

Fine, that meant it was time to break out some new stuff. If he was going to have to go for it he had to be really shifty and tricky with his moves. That was just fine. He had some attacks he wanted to try that he'd learned for himself while training with Shigure.

Looking at his chain for a split second, he looked back up at the plucky Chinese girl who seemed ready to continue. Great. Time to turn up the heat, 'Time for the Kajoushuki (Spiral Cycle) stance. Am I ready with it though?' He asked himself while gripping the manriki-gusari chain tightly.

He hadn't tested it in battle before. He hadn't even practiced it or tried to use it under the watchful eye of Shigure, and since she hadn't been the one to teach it to him in the first place it wasn't a stance that she knew of. It was a move that came from his parents' notes, but it was meant to work on enemies that were good at dodging attacks.

And he was completely and utterly ready to break it out and give it a try.

At least until he again found himself picked up off of the ground by the back of his bag by Sakaki. How uncool.

Even the girl came to a stop abruptly, bouncing off of the front of Sakaki's chest after he'd gotten in the way, "Hey! Now who the hell are you?"

"The one responsible for this guy." Sakaki said, giving Naruto a shake for emphasis, "By the way kid, we were wrong, those guys weren't Triads."

"What guys?" The Chinese girl asked, only to then see the two men that had confronted Naruto and Sakaki earlier under his arm, looking worse for wear and as if they'd just woken up from being knocked out, "Genson? Shokatsu?"

"We're not Triads…" The two hapless and beaten down men said dully.

Those were two of her uncle's disciples and they were pretty damn good too. So this guy had to have been far above their level.

Actually when she ran into him he felt like a steel wall. And he looked like he was around 30 or so. A rough 30, but 30 nonetheless. And if he was really supposed to be responsible for the scruffy punk he'd been holding up by the bag on his back…

…That meant that this man was probably a master.

…Crap.

Still though.

Sakaki raised an eyebrow when he saw the girl take up a fighting stance against him. Both he and Naruto shared glances as if to ask if she was serious or not, "Uh, I wouldn't do that." Naruto tried to warn her well in advance, "I know he's got his hands full and everything, but if you attack him he'll just kick you through a wall or something. Ask me how I know."

"I wouldn't kick her through a wall brat." Sakaki defended with a scoff, "I'd have to turn and kick her at an angle to put her through a wall. If I kicked her she'd probably go down the street or through the windshield of that parked car or something."

"You said that like it's better."

"You've got to be the assassin then." The girl said, a bit of fear creeping into her voice that she tried to quell. Seriously, this big guy in the jacket with the scar on his face looked positively brutal, "I mean, there's no way the urchin you're holding-." Cue indignant 'Hey!' from Naruto, "-Would be strong enough to do what's been going on around here, but you would be. And he's got to be your disciple. He's got to be at least that good to have dodged me."

Both Naruto and Sakaki burst out in laughter, and kept it that way, even when Sakaki dropped Naruto and let him hit the ground. Naruto just got back up and kept on laughing, "You think _this_ worthless brat is _my_ disciple? Not a chance! His wrists are a little too limp for my fighting styles."

"Yeah." Naruto said, taking a breath to keep chuckling as he ignored the remark sent his way, "You think Karate Bum here is an assassin? What part of him looks like he can kill anybody without everyone in a three block radius knowing he did it?"

"But… but…" Okay now she was extremely confused. The vendor had come running talking about how he was being attacked by these two shady characters, to which they responded. But they weren't even Triads or anything, "Then who are you?"

The man under Sakaki's arm with the glasses let out a cough before putting forth his input, "…Can we go inside somewhere so we can patch ourselves up?" He asked almost desperately after Sakaki's thrashing, "…Please?"

The man that had dealt them the beating merely rolled his eyes. In Sakaki Shio's opinion he didn't even beat them down that badly. He'd held back a ton. They'd gotten maybe four or five bones broken at most.

XxX

(With Kenichi – Back in Town)

While it didn't matter too much to Kenichi about Miu missing dinner, it did for the remaining masters in dojo, because she was the one that usually cooked. Other than her, only Kensei was able to make anything that was actually edible and constituted a real meal.

So while he was cooking, Kenichi took it upon himself to fetch Miu and return home with her. She had wanted to go to Naruto's house since they knew where it was now, but he couldn't go with her at the time due to what he'd been busy with.

And his Karate sensei Sakaki had taken Naruto with him to go do… something, so he wasn't even at home.

The ever-darkening town streets were pretty quiet as he walked, taking the directions that he remembered would eventually lead him to Naruto's neighborhood. But as he kept moving along the sidewalk, Kenichi found himself drawing nearer to the sound of someone playing some kind of instrument. A violin?

Curious as to where exactly the music was coming from, because it was actually pretty damn good, Kenichi found himself momentarily sidetracked as he walked off of the main road onto a footpath.

Hearing something attuned to the gentler arts after months of having to deal with violent training and brutal personalities really appealed to him.

Eventually he found the culprit of the lovely music sitting on a roadside ledge by the storm drain that cut through town; some grey-haired young man in a dark red coat and a red hat with a feather on top. Strange attire, but the guy had talent.

So much so that Kenichi stood off to the side and listened to the remainder of the song, only letting his presence be known after it had drawn to an end with applause, "Wow, that was great." He complimented with an earnest smile, "Are you just out here practicing for a concert or something?"

"No, I'm actually passing the time waiting for someone." The long-haired young man said, putting his instrument down to the side, "Trying to build the end of my latest musical composition. It's missing something though, but I guess I have plenty of time to work on it."

"You're waiting for someone?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a person that ran into my friend." The strange young man said, humming musically between his sentences, "A man named Uzumaki Naruto. Have you heard of him?"

Crap. Okay Kenichi, play it cool.

"W-Why do you think this person would come around here in particular?" Kenichi asked with a nervous grin on his face. If someone was looking for Naruto that probably didn't bode well for the reason behind it.

Standing up from where he'd been sitting by the storm drain, the musical youth showed himself to be rather tall, standing a few inches above Kenichi, "He's apparently been seen heading this way on his route home from his high school, but most lose him… right around here, tra-la-la." What a weird guy, singing to himself like that, "So have you seen this person before? Around your size, blond wild hair, easy to upset?"

"No!" Kenichi replied much louder than needed for a question between just the two of them.

"Hm." The musician hunting for Naruto said before turning around away from Kenichi, "You're a horrendous li~~~ar!" He sang out before suddenly turning to lunge violently at Kenichi, "You will bring me Uzum-!"

Kenichi flat out kicked him in the face, felling him with one blow and sending him spinning down to the ground out of pure reflex. Wow. That guy seemed like he had really been coming at him with the intent to kill. People like that usually didn't go down so easily, but down he went, and he didn't seem like he'd be getting back up.

Staring down at the person, hair sprawled about and covering their face, Kenichi just blinked and slowly lowered his leg from the kick, "…Okay? Ah, I'm going to go now. Sorry about knocking you out like that."

He had barely taken one step to begin turning around before he found a pair of kicks slammed right into his side, knocking him off of his feet and to the ground. Rolling through, Kenichi twisted and stared at his opponent who was back up on his feet as if he hadn't even hit him to begin with, "So you do know him!"

"What the hell?" Kenichi wondered aloud. Didn't he hit him in the face? There wasn't even a mark on him, 'And what's with this feeling? It feels like if I let him make a move first he'll destroy me.'

"Quake in fear at the immortal composer of Ragnarok! The Fifth Fist Siegfried!"

A Fist? Oh boy.

'I can't let him strike first!' Kenichi thought frantically as his eccentric foe rushed him again, but once again he landed his blow first, striking him with a stiff Karate punch to the face that spun Siegfried around. Instead, this only wound up with him spinning around and lashing out with an even stronger return punch that drew blood from Kenichi's lip, 'No, not again! I know I hit him!'

"The intensity in your techniques is lacking!" Siegfried pointed out as Kenichi held his mouth, "Please put more into your attacks!"

'Ah… am I still that weak?' No. After what had happened with Loki, he couldn't have been. He'd thrown all of himself into improving, even moving out of his family's house and into the dojo to train full-time, 'There's a way to find out what's going on. So if hitting him won't work…'

A sudden dash from Kenichi that Siegfried didn't seem prepared for wound up with the boy with the band-aid on his face managing to crouch down and grab him by the leg. Snorting like a bull, Kenichi lifted it up above his head and stood, throwing Siegfried up and forcing him to land hard on the back of his head, "Kuchiki Daoshi (The Falling Tree)!"

There was no way that the move could have looked like it worked any better, but after a split-second of being on the ground, Siegfried sprang back up and snapped a leg downward in a kick that smashed Kenichi on the top of the head and knocked him down, "Good! Good! Magnificent!" He shouted as he kept flipping and tried to slam his leg down onto the downed Kenichi who kept rolling out of the way until the barrage ceased, "More power! More force! You're still not attacking hard enough!"

This couldn't be real. Every time Kenichi hit him, no matter what technique or style he put against him, he would always get back up and hit him even harder, 'What do I do?'

"You're definitely not Uzumaki Naruto, the one that defeated my close friend Thor." Siegfried said as Kenichi stood in a different stance, signifying his shift in fighting styles, "The multiple fighting styles, the timid nature. Yes, you're Shirahama Kenichi. I'll learn his location from yo~~~u, and take him on next! My good friend will be avenged." He sang.

Kenichi let a deep breath out from his nostrils and ignored his mounting bruises and blood trailing from his nose and lip, gritting his teeth in determination, "…You're strong. Probably too strong from me. I can't think of a way to hurt you if you keep getting up from all of this. But I won't lose, and even if I did I wouldn't just tell you where to find Naruto if all you want to do is hurt him too."

"Oh really now?" Siegfried said, holding down the brim of his hat over his eyes, "From everything I've heard, no one even knows how to find this man outside of school hours. Even his _friends_ such as yourself, la-la-la."

"Yeah, he's got some secrets, and he's a shady ninja-type person…" Kenichi said, listing Naruto's faults, "He's kind of bigheaded, and he isn't always the smartest guy, but he's still a good friend. If you're out to get revenge on him for fighting Thor, I'll stop you here!"

"Yes! Show me the symphony of your friendship Shirahama Kenichi!" From there he went into vocal exercises with his arms outstretched wide, leaving himself wide open for attack.

Kenichi instinctually wanted to launch at him with the Kai Loi knee attack, but he'd been landing attacks the entire time and not one of them registered any real damage dealt. So what was he going to do?

_(Flashback – Ryozanpaku Dojo)_

"_Ken-chan seems to be getting used to Naruto-kun." Hayato pointed out as he checked in on Kenichi's progress with back-to-back spars against Naruto and then Miu, "He hasn't been knocked down this round and it's been over thirty seconds!"_

"_Stop attacking Naruto!" Kenichi insisted as he was able to avoid heavier blows from Naruto's indirect style. Having seen Naruto fight before, his harder attacks seemed to come when an opponent tried to counter his aggressive assault, "Give me a chance here!"_

_Irritated by Kenichi's complaining, Naruto stopped and stepped back with a twitching eye, "Alright fine. I'm calling my shot. I'm going straight. Do something about it." Naruto kicked his leg out several times as if he were warming up a kickstart engine, "Here we go brother! __Tadayoudou (Straight Feint)__!"_

_Preparing for a speedy forward movement, Kenichi tried not to let his eyes be fooled by a misstep when Naruto came straight ahead. Taking a step back with his guard up, Kenichi saw Naruto seemingly lunge to deliver a driving kick or a knee strike with the speed and momentum, only for nothing to happen, "Wha-?"_

_Instead of an actual attack, when Naruto saw Kenichi brace and lean forward to defend he dashed diagonally to the side and bumped into him harshly, knocking him off-balance and to the floor. It was as simple as that._

_Hayato shook his head and moved along after somehow producing a lollipop from nowhere for his own personal enjoyment as he chuckled to himself._

"_Didn't see that coming did you?" Naruto asked as he backtrotted in a circle around Kenichi._

"_You said you were going to attack me head-on! Liar!"_

"_I never lie! I didn't say I was gonna _attack_ head-on, I just said I was going straight! I went straight!"_

(End Flashback)

It wasn't up his alley, but he needed something out of left field to try and turn the tide.

With a deep breath, Kenichi went forward at the wide-open Siegfried again, arms set for a powerful strike. In his effort to imitate, he blundered forward and riskily stopped short one step away and stumbled before he could lunge to one side or the other, only brushing Siegfried's hat, 'Damn! Why does Naruto make moving like that look so easy?'

Apparently a ton of practice went into Naruto's dexterity when it came to executing his feints, because Kenichi was certain that he'd looked like a complete mess trying to mimic what he thought Naruto's legs were supposed to look like while in motion.

*THUMP*

As he regained his balance, Kenichi just stared down at the ground… because Siegfried had fallen down flat on his back.

…

"…What the hell are you doing?" Kenichi deadpanned lamely, "I didn't even touch you." And the lightbulb went off, "I didn't even touch you! Wait, have I even been hitting you this entire time?"

With the jig being up, Siegfried hopped back onto his feet in disappointment, "You have, but I've never allowed your blows to be clean or anything more devastating than a glancing touch. I've been countering everything you've been trying by displacing the force of your moves to power my own. But it doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Even though you know my strategy, it doesn't mean anything. No matter what you do, no matter which fighting style you attempt to use, I've got the rhythm you use for each of them down perfectly. You cannot throw off my masterful counter-technique."

There was still that. Even though he knew what he was doing, he'd somehow still have to hit him in order to win.

But Siegfried wasn't going to attack. He was just standing there and waiting. The Fifth Fist wasn't going to make the first move. Everything he did was in outright retaliation to the enemy's first attack.

Okay, maybe he could throw him off by using more than one style in a single attack?

He'd never practiced that except for on a training post. Fuck, why not though? It broke the damn post.

Move the punch hand and the other non-punching hand at the same time as if they were connected; Karate. The Jujitsu principle of using one's own body weight to deal damage to the opponent. Chinese Kenpo's of surpassing the mind's limit as you send your hand out to strike. And Muay Thai's battlefield presence of hitting a target as if you were trying to punch through the son of a bitch.

'One punch.' Completely original in the movement and intent of the attack, Kenichi struck out at Siegfried dead-center, hitting him right in the chest full-force.

He struck true. Kenichi knew that he had. He didn't just feel the contact of hitting Siegfried's body, he felt the bones behind the punch break. He felt the ribs crack and shatter from the force of the blow.

That one hit clean, and he knew it did.

But Siegfried still stood after taking the punch and getting knocked back. Was he really that tough? No wonder he was friends with Thor, who could take many of Naruto's best shots, if he could stand up to that.

"…" Siegfried just stood tall after taking the punch, his eyes shadowed by the hat on his head, "That attack." He said, "What do you call it?"

Kenichi blinked and raised an eyebrow, "Ah, it's just a punch. A power punch. I just put a whole bunch of different principles of martial arts into it, not just one. It doesn't have a name really."

"No, it's not just a punch. Fast, powerful, but most importantly… I couldn't read it." Siegfried admitted, "There isn't a rhythm to be read from it. Mubyoshi (No Beat). There's no beat to the strike whatsoever. I couldn't counter." That meant he took it full force… right?

Yes. Because blood sputtered from his mouth and he fell over like a redwood. He did not get back up after falling out.

Kenichi kept his guard up in case Siegfried was just playing possum, but when he unconsciously spat more blood up into the air it was evident that he wasn't screwing around this time.

He won.

"I actually beat one of them?" All he could do was look at his fist that had dealt the winning blow, "Mubyoshi (No Beat) huh?" He'd actually defeated one of the Eight Fists himself, all alone. He had to tell someone. And then he remembered what he'd been going to do before he found himself in a fight, "…Miu-san!" He bellowed as he took off running as fast as he could back en route to Naruto's house.

The first person he wanted to tell about such a major victory was the girl that was the center of it all and the original catalyst to the beginning of his training in the martial arts.

After a while, from a different direction entirely, Tanimoto Natsu walked over to the downed Siegfried and stared down at him.

He couldn't believe it. Shirahama had beaten Siegfried of all people. _He_ hadn't been able to think of a way to overcome Siegfried's brutally effective counterattack style, no one outside of the Three of Card had, and yet a boy with no natural talent had found a way to?

"A guy like that…" Tanimoto said as he held up the glove for the Fourth Fist that was supposed to have gone to Siegfried had he not just been defeated by one of Ragnarok's main targets, "…Really annoys me."

By process of elimination with Loki's departure and Siegfried's defeat botching his own promotion, 'Hermit' was no longer the Sixth Fist. He was now the Fourth.

* * *

**I originally had this in one chapter, but it was way too long to put together in one complete thing, so I broke it up into two. So carry on if you'd like and go forth, or take a bathroom break or get a drink or something, or go to work or school and save this for when you come back, or say that I suck and stop reading here entirely.**

**Either way, there's another chapter right after this one, so go ahead and do what you do.**

**Kenchi out.**


	11. The Writing on the Wall

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Man I'm tired. I don't even have anything stupid to add onto this disclaimer.

**Chapter 11: The Writing on the Wall**

* * *

If it wasn't Naruto's house, Shikamaru would have started beating his head on the wall until he put a hole into it. Since it _was_ Naruto's house, Shikamaru only punished a doorframe with the front of his skull.

The reason was three-fold, because not only had 'Ryouzanpaku's Princess' Fuurinji Miu found out where Naruto lived, the Shirahama kid did as well.

Kenichi was sitting in the living room regaling Miu and Tenten about how he'd just defeated Siegfried. The former (Miu) just seemed to beam in happiness at how excited he seemed to be at defeating a powerful enemy, the latter (Tenten) just seemed taken aback at how this flaky-looking guy could beat the Fifth Fist.

"Shikamaru stop hitting your head on the doorframe." Tenten chided after hearing the dull thunk of his skull off of the harder-than-wall surface. She knew by now that he wanted as little to do as possible with Ryouzanpaku due to past experiences, but they were way past that point if one of the masters of that dojo insisted on working with Naruto, "…If you wind up killing too many of those brain cells we're all sunk."

The novelty of his victory over Siegfried eventually gave way to a bit of amazement washing over Kenichi at being inside of Naruto's house. He didn't know what to expect after finding out that his best friend was a ninja, but this wasn't it.

It was so… normal.

The strangest thing about being in a house populated by ninjas was the fact that there was nothing there that you'd find out of place in anyone else's home. TVs, beds, couches, video games, books, pictures of family, it was totally bread-and-butter.

A few pictures caught Miu's eye as she got up and walked over to look at a family portrait of a tall man with blonde spiky hair and blue eyes standing with a beautiful red-haired woman, both of them holding up what looked to be a very small Naruto that was trying to wrestle with his vastly bigger father.

"Aw… are these Naruto-kun's parents?" Miu asked, picking up that picture in particular and looking at it, "His mother's so beautiful." And he got a lot of his features from his father. Apparently being mellow wasn't one of those things because even then when he couldn't have been older than five he looked to be way more manic than the adult male in the shot.

"I'm not sure how he'd feel about you touching all over his stuff." Shikamaru pointed out with his face still sunken against the doorframe, getting Miu to quickly put the picture back where she found it just as the doorbell rang again for the third time that day, "What is it with today?"

This time Tenten got up to go and check the door. Upon looking through the front she saw a man wearing a white and red kimono looking extremely cultured as he waited patiently outside. That was a change from the usual company they'd been getting. Granted that had only been three people thus far, but still.

And then upon opening the door she found that behind him stood maybe the tallest person she'd ever seen in her life, "Hello." The first, more normal-looking man greeted pleasantly, "This is Uzumaki Naruto's home, correct?" Tenten just nodded dumbly, "Are Kenichi and Miu here?"

"Kouetsuji-sensei?" Kenichi said as he recognized the voice and peeked out from the living room, "_And_ Apachai-sensei?"

"Apa! Hey Kenichi!" Apachai said as he ducked down underneath the door and waved in to him, getting Tenten to take a tentative hop back, "Naruto's house is nice." A repeated cry of 'No, no, no!' came from Shikamaru in the living room. Needless to say, he was not pleased with the presence of Apachai.

"Great… the guy that maimed Naruto is here now." Shikamaru complained, turning around with a vertical red mark running down his forehead.

Shikamaru pointing out how Apachai had almost dealt Naruto the most fatal injury of his life depressed the giant Thai fighter, who turned around and sat down on the stoop outside, dejected, "Apa… Apachai said he was sorry to Naruto a hundred times already."

"And he probably forgave you, but when I had to watch you cut him like this-." For emphasis, Shikamaru took his thumb and drew it across his body from his right shoulder down to his left hip, "-With your elbow, it kind of makes you wary. Let's see, does anyone that _hasn't_ almost killed us before know where we live?"

Kenichi pointed weakly to himself to try and make Shikamaru feel better, "I do Nara-san. And I've never tried to kill you before." He joked weakly.

This did nothing to satisfy the dull-eyed tactical genius, "Troublesome. If you're with Ryouzanpaku it'll just be a matter of time… mark my words."

"What a pessimistic young man." Akisame said upon being let in by Tenten, "I only remember having to deal with you personally once, and I don't think I hurt you that badly." Compared to Naruto of course, "Anyway, I've come to get Miu and Kenichi-kun to return with us to the dojo. It's getting late."

Also, he wanted to see Naruto's house in person and just wanted the excuse. But he'd never say that. It wasn't his thing.

"Yes, please." Shikamaru said, dragging Tenten out of the foyer and away from the human weapons, "Take them and go. I'm getting a headache here."

Tenten gave him a wry smile at the way he seemed to assume that kicking them out now would mean that they'd never be back again, "You do realize that nothing's stopping them from showing up on the doorstep any time they want to from now on right?"

"…More booby traps. Better booby traps." Was the solution from Shikamaru, "And home security."

It was hard to believe that these were ninjas from what Kenichi could see about them. Tenten was by far the most normal between herself, Shikamaru, and Naruto and he'd never seen her or Shikamaru in action. If he wasn't willing to take their and Miu's word for it he never would have believed it without seeing it.

Speaking of whom, he noticed that Miu was back looking at more pictures of Naruto's family, this time some of the ones hung up on the walls in the foyer. He wondered why until he came to his own conclusion first, 'Oh, Miu's parents died a long, long time ago too.' She must have been very empathetic to that sort of thing.

That had been a bit along the lines of her train of thought at first, but it wasn't what she'd been thinking when Kenichi actually saw her. She wasn't looking at the pictures of Naruto's parents, she was looking at Naruto in particular, this time he had to have been around three or four, 'Why do I feel like I-? Did I actually meet him that far back? Before grandfather took me on that trip?'

It wasn't that farfetched to consider at all. This was the home of Naruto's family, and all things considered it wasn't that far away from Ryouzanpaku at all. Just a few miles really. She wouldn't have had that feeling at looking at a picture of little Naruto if there wasn't something behind it.

Akisame, if one would have paid attention, could even have been caught staring at one of the pictures if only for a moment, but his attention was on both Minato and Kushina in the pictures before he looked away. If you'd blinked you would have missed it.

Kenichi didn't though, "Sensei?" What kind of interest like that would he have had in family pictures, unless he was trying to break down just what kind of people brought Naruto into the world? But why did he look so melancholy for that split-second if that were the case?

"We should be heading back." Akisame said with a pleasant smile, planting a fond hand on Kenichi's head, "After the victory you had today over a powerful opponent, Kensei managed to save a big amount of the dinner he made for you when we get back."

"H-How did you know I won a-?"

"Eh, it's all over your face."

That had been enough to diffuse Kenichi's questions, as well as a promise to step up his training tomorrow as a reward for coming so far, which got Kenichi to shut up out of sheer fear. He was afraid that Kenichi would have gone into a line of questioning that he didn't want to get into.

XxX

(With Naruto and Sakaki – Yokohama – Chinatown District)

"Heh, sorry about this guy making trouble." Sakaki apologized sheepishly, resting a hand on a very displeased Naruto's head as the two of them sat at a table inside of a restaurant, "I really should be keeping a better eye on him."

"You're the one that beat those two guys up and scared the vendor." Naruto remarked under his breath before feeling his neck crack from how much pressure was being put on his head, "Ow!"

A chuckle came from an old Chinese man with long balding black hair and a long mustache and goatee. He wore traditional Chinese clothes much like another person that they knew, but in a blue color, "It's quite alright. No harm-." He stopped himself before he could say that no harm was done, "Well, no harm that can't be fixed in short order."

Poor Genson and Koan. Wrong place, wrong time, and definitely the wrong intended opponent.

"But to come here in order to deal with the assassin going around…" The old man said as he sat down in front of Naruto and Sakaki and sighed, "You are aware of the fact that no one has seen this person before, correct? How on earth do you plan to locate such a person?"

Sakaki kept rubbing Naruto's head, ignoring the sounds of his neck cracking as he did so, "This brat right here is my secret weapon."

As he said that, the girl from before had been on her way over with prepared food for the guests that she set down in front of them, "Uncle Hakubi, I still don't see why a master-level martial artist would need any kind of help from a kid like this."

"Renka, be polite." Her uncle told her, cursing the girl's headstrong nature, "That young man hasn't done anything to warrant such resentment from you."

"Yes uncle." She did not sound pleased in the slightest, but out of respect she'd do what she was told. It was more of an uneasiness towards the unknown that caused her to bare her teeth. He managed to avoid her attack, and she had no idea what the basis of his style was, but she knew he was a fighter, and a decent one if she were correct.

She was also kind of sore because due to Sakaki hurting the other two workers in the restaurant as badly as he did, she was forced to take over their jobs in addition to her own for the time being. And since she couldn't antagonize a master too greatly without paying a price for it, she didn't have any other outlet for her mood other than Naruto.

For the time being at least she was completely content with trying to bore a hole through him with her eyes, and he didn't have any problems with giving it right back as he glared at her the whole time he chewed his food.

Renka was feeding him, by choice or not, and as far as he knew it was free, so he wasn't going to mouth off if he didn't have to. One of the easiest ways to Naruto's heart and to calm him down was through his belly, and you had a much better chance at telling him off without getting a scathingly vitriolic response if you gave him something good to snack on first.

When he was hungry he'd be extra cranky, and in the same vein he'd be as right as rain if he was eating. He'd be mellow until he ran out of food, and if he wasn't full by that time and you said something else he would _then_ proceed to lay into you in return.

"You look like you haven't eaten all day." Renka pointed out, a look of abhorrence on her face as Naruto continued to demolish all that was set before him, "You know what chewing is, right?"

"It's Karate Bum's fault. Him and his driving." Naruto said audibly, barely taking the time to pause in order to speak until he stopped to take a decent amount of air in, "Hey, did you make this?" Renka nodded, expecting him to finally start taking return jabs at her, "It's really good. I definitely need to come to Chinatown more."

Her gaze relented slightly at how docile he was when he wasn't irritated. She had mistaken the kind of person he was, at least beyond the surface. It was almost like he was a puppy or something; really easy to rile up, but begrudgingly endearing when he wasn't wound up like a spring.

The adults continued to speak as Renka lingered around, not backing down from her glaring standoff with Naruto as he continued to wolf down every speck of the meal in front of him, at least until Naruto's eyes picked up a third in the restaurant getting up to leave.

A tall, laid-back looking man of around or over 30 years of age wearing a black jacket and dark pants got up from his table across the way, laying down a tip on the table after paying his bill. He had short and spiky black hair and a beard that framed his jaw, "Until the next time. Thanks for the meal."

"Have a good evening, and thank you for stopping by!" The proprietor of the restaurant called out as the man left, getting a smile and a wave from him as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it up in his mouth on the way out.

As he left, his eyes moved a short ways onto Naruto and for a split-second Naruto could swear that he saw a flash of recognition in the man's eyes. But no, it had to be a trick of the low light of the restaurant. He didn't know that guy, and he didn't interact with any adults outside of the ones he constantly tried to rip off for years from Ryouzanpaku.

Still, it lingered in the back of his mind, even when the man left and made his way down the street.

"Hey." The contemplative Naruto was roused from his thoughts by Renka poking him in the side of the head while he chewed at a more reserved pace, "What's the matter with you?"

"Hm? Nothing, just thinking about something." Naruto said before trying to change the subject, "Hey, can we try and start over again? I know we're not the biggest fan of each other right now, but we're really just here to try and help before someone else gets killed by the assassin."

He was happier now because he had a belly full of warm food. So burying the hatchet seemed reasonable enough. Having friends was better than having enemies after all.

Renka gave Naruto a stern, long stare before relenting with a sigh and a shrug, "I guess so." Pointing her thumb at herself she stood proudly, "My name is Ma Renka, and my granduncle is Ma Ryou. What's your name? I don't think I caught it."

"Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto offered a hand for Renka to shake, which she did, "You didn't catch it because Karate Bum only calls me brat. His name is Sakaki Shio by the way, but he doesn't matter."

"You don't matter you stupid brat." Sakaki replied, downing a saucer of sake that had been supplied by Renka's granduncle, "…This is really good."

Wait... Ma Ryou? Ma Renka?

"Man this is weird." Naruto said with a shake of his head as his grip languished on Renka's hand, "Any relation to Ma Kensei?" And then he felt a near crushing pressure overtake the hand that was attached to Renka's, "Ow! Damn woman, grip!"

"You know papa?"

"Papa?" Naruto parroted incredulously, "That old letch is your dad?"

"Yeah, that sounds like him…" Renka said with a frown before getting fired back up, "But you can't talk about him like that!"

"After all of the asskickings I've survived from him I think I can talk about him any way I want to!"

"Whatever! If you know where papa is, tell me! I need to take him with me back to China!"

Ryou felt the need to creep away and make a phone call at that very moment while Renka was distracted by arguing with Naruto and Sakaki was getting his eight chuckles off of the entire situation that he barely understood, 'Oh Kensei… I tried to keep Renka at bay here for as long as I could, but she now knows for sure you're here in Japan.'

If that girl got the entire location of Kensei's current whereabouts she would more than likely stop at nothing to drag him home. Ryou knew full well that this was not what his nephew wanted, which was why he had kept the fact that Kensei lived at Ryouzanpaku to himself.

Now Naruto didn't give two craps about why Kensei's daughter had to go around looking for him, and in any other circumstances he'd probably help her. After all, he could understand better than most the desire to have one's parents around. But the fact that she was being so pushy… well Naruto didn't like being told to do anything by someone that he failed to see as superior to him.

There was a bit of an animal's instinct in him in that respect.

"Why the hell should I tell you anything with an attitude like that?"

"Because I'll beat your ass until you do!" Renka emphasized this by sweeping the legs of Naruto's chair and breaking them to send him down to the ground on his backside, "Like that!"

Turning to the left with a growl, Naruto was prepared to antagonize Renka further and initiate a fight by saying that he could totally see up her skirt, but the underside of one of the tables caught his eye and took precedence over everything else, "…Karate Bum… why is there a bomb stuck under that table over there?"

Immediately Sakaki stopped drinking and turned robotically in the direction that Naruto was staring in, choosing to bend over and look underneath the table as well, seeing the packed explosives as clear as day, "…Well I could be wrong brat, but I think it could be because someone wants to blow this place up."

Oh. That was all?

All of them were eerily calm about the way that things were going, even as Renka took a single step away from the direction that they were all looking in, "So… what exactly are we going to-?"

Before she could even finish her question, Sakaki had dashed over to the table and hurled out the front window of the restaurant before it blew up on the streets outside and rocked the storefront with flames.

As the building shook from the outside due to the blast, Naruto had Renka covered with his own body on the inside, gritting his teeth until the vibrations subsided, 'Wow. He really is fast.' And he didn't hesitate to get her down and cover her either. He even kicked the table over to take as much of the danger away as he could, 'And he's protecting me?'

She figured he was just some thug with a little bit of talent. A run-of-the-mill punk wouldn't have done something like trying to shield her from a deadly explosion with his own body.

"I think I'm deaf now." Naruto mumbled to himself as the sound of cracking and falling objects rang out all along them, "No, nevermind because I just heard myself talk."

"Phew." Sakaki said as he dusted himself off and walked away from where he'd taken cover by the wall, "That was close. But I handled it." He finished proudly with a wide grin.

This prompted Naruto to then unleashed his verbal wrath on Sakaki, "Right! Because whenever I see a bomb, my first idea is to run at it and grab it!" He then looked down at the girl he had protected just in case there was something wrong, "Ah, you alright?"

Being that close to such an empathetic look on his face prompted her to stare up at him for several seconds until she realized he was waiting for an answer, "Fine, fine, get off would you?" Renka asked, pushing Naruto off to hide her red face that Naruto took for, "Are _you_ alright?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it. My bag would have taken a big chunk of the blast if we were in any real danger." Naruto said, patting his sturdy supply bag on his back, knocking off some soot and debris… and stray flames, "That guy that left was the last person to sit there. Was it timed?"

Naruto didn't know much about explosives, especially explosive traps, but that bomb didn't seem timed. If it had been timed then Sakaki was a lucky mf'er to get rid of it just as it exploded. So it had to have been a proximity trap.

The moment someone would have gone over there to get the tip or clear the table it would have gone off.

"Right." Sakaki said, dusting his hands off with an angry look on his face, "Kid, I'm going after the smoking guy. That's our man. And if he isn't, he works for whoever our man is."

He took off on foot at a blisteringly breakneck pace to find the would-be assassin, while Naruto and Renka got up and looked around the restaurant. It looked like a warzone, and it had been rendered as such in a matter of seconds.

"Uncle Hakubi's shop…" Renka said in a depressed tone of voice, "That could have been him. That could have been Genson or Koan."

"That could have been you." Naruto added, and it really could have been. If she'd gone over there before he'd lucked out and found the bomb it would have been her, "Seriously… I didn't see this coming at all when I woke up this morning." He said as he walked over to where the table had been and looked around.

"Renka!" Coming back out from the back, Ryou was rushed over to by Renka who hugged him tightly, "Are you two alright?"

"Yeah." Naruto said as he started looking around and saw a long, thin shine on the floor, 'Ninja wire?' It could have just been a regular tripwire, but as he stooped down to take a better look at it his heart stopped when he saw how low it was tied to the leg of a nearby overturned chair leg, 'That's the same setup they teach us for traps on the Homeland!'

Most people used metal wire for traps high enough off of the ground that people had to trip, so that they couldn't walk over it without snapping it, hence the name 'tripwire'.

The way that they were taught as children was that while it was easier to set a trap in that way, it was far riskier. The closer to the ground you could keep your tripwire without it being seen, the better. That was the way that he, Shikamaru, and Tenten booby-trapped his house. It was easier to blend in with the grass that way.

But for it to work you had to know exactly how your target would move to make sure that they would trip it and make go off. For as long as that person had been there he'd been watching either Renka or Ryou walk back and forth around the restaurant.

Or worse. He bid Ryou farewell as if he'd eaten there before, so he had probably been there several times to make sure he got everything down perfectly.

Naruto could feel his heart beating hard enough to leap up out of his throat. While Renka fretted over her uncle's safety, Naruto couldn't contain himself any longer and took off out through the busted front window to try and find Sakaki and the man that he had figured was a Konoha ninja, "I've gotta go you guys!" Naruto shouted as he leapt out and started running in the direction he'd seen Sakaki go as fast as he could, "Me and Karate Bum'll be back!"

"Naruto wait!" Renka shouted after him before turning to Ryou, "Uncle Hakubi, why did that assassin attack your restaurant? He'd only been targeting Yakuza bosses before this. Why you?"

"Because no matter who he'd been targeting, he was turning Chinatown into a slaughterhouse. I can't stand for that, even if his targets were criminals." Ryou said, "He knew I was against him, and felt that having a master-class fighter like myself who knew as much about Chinatown as I did standing against him while he went about his work was too dangerous."

He figured that eventually something like this would happen. But to endanger his grandniece and possibly his two other disciples… it was probably a blessing in disguise that Sakaki had beaten them badly enough to send them off for a short hospital visit. Lady Luck probably wouldn't have held up in making sure that they stayed safe too.

"He doesn't know his way around Chinatown." Ryou pointed out about Naruto, "Go help him. Even if that man returns…" A shine reflected dangerously off of his glasses, "…I am a master myself you know."

"Alright." Renka just hoped that she could catch up to Naruto. He wasn't exactly moving slowly. She had gotten glimpse of his eyes when he'd been checking over where the trapped table had been, before Ryou had emerged from the back. Something had spooked him badly.

Renka hadn't even known Naruto for that long, but from the interactions she'd had thus far, certain things were obvious even without him having to say it. And it wasn't his fault. It was his eyes… they were the things that gave him away. The emotive blue orbs… they would always ensure to whoever paid enough attention that he could never lie or keep something hidden.

As she hit the streets and got to work on trying to catch up she couldn't help but think about the look in his eyes to herself, 'What scared you so much Naruto?'

XxX

(Meanwhile – Elsewhere in Chinatown)

Sarutobi Asuma had a big legacy to live up to as a ninja. His clan had been one of the original clans that had chosen to band together with some of the others to form the single entity of Konoha. His father was one of the few to ever reach the level of kage in the modern era of the ninja and was one of the most influential voices on the Council of the Kage that dictated how the entirety of the worldwide organization was run.

He wasn't a kage, but he was a jounin, the next level below.

And he knew when there was a time to regroup. Whether or not that explosion had killed Ma Ryou was irrelevant. He'd hear about the results of the assassination attempt without even trying to if he remained around Chinatown. If he succeeded he would begin planning his next attempt on the next Triad-head, as was his mission. If he failed he'd have to go back to the drawing board and avoid the most knowledgeable man in Chinatown for the time being. Killing him wasn't part of the mission anyway.

It was just that Ma Ryou was a dangerous enough entity to disrupt two months of work by keeping him from finishing his contract.

Yes, it was better to disengage for now and let things play themselves out for a bit. Something would shake out and he'd simply continue on until his job was done.

Even so, staying on the rooftops out of sight was for the best for the time being. No one was on the street to see him exit the restaurant, but it was just to be safe. He'd return to his safehouse and remain there for as long as he needed, "Man I wish I'd gotten a partner for this mission. It'd have gone way easier."

"HEY!"

Asuma almost swallowed his cigarette as he turned around at the loud yell and found the large man from the restaurant following behind, jumping from surface to surface and cracking tile with every leap as he got closer, 'Fuck! I knew that guy was a master, but he didn't really look like the agile type to catch up!'

To Sakaki's chagrin, Asuma had been moving at a reserved pace to focus on the next leg of his planning. Upon realizing that he was being chased he picked up the pace and started maintaining the distance between them.

"You think blowing up me and my friend's disciple is something I can let you get away with!?" Sakaki bellowed as he continued to chase Asuma down.

He knew that the girl had been Ryou's relative, so he couldn't have been talking about her. He had to have been referring to the blond boy. The one that looked just like Namikaze Minato.

_Everyone_ in Asuma's generation of ninja knew who Minato was. He was supposed to have been the best. The first of his generation to achieve the level of kage in the shortest amount of time.

And then he died along with his wife, and left his young son all alone. The boy allegedly didn't pan out to the high expectations for him and the bar that he'd set for himself in his first years and he'd been 'let go'.

'He's still alive?' Those features looked so close to Minato's that it couldn't have been a mistake or a coincidence, 'Gah, I can't think about that right now! I've got to deal with this!'

At this rate he wasn't going to lose Sakaki and he knew it, so Asuma reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of toothed trench knives with razor-sharp knuckles. If he couldn't run he had to fight and wait for an opening to retreat again.

"I guess it can't be helped." Asuma said gravely as he turned to face Sakaki who had managed to catch up on a very long pagoda-style roof, "I have to fight."

A livid expression sat on Sakaki's face as he stared the assassin down, "…There were kids in that restaurant. Look me in the eye and tell me that your bomb wasn't going to kill them too." He demanded to know, "Say something."

"The girl's a martial artist and the boy was supposed to be a ninja if I'm right about him." Asuma explained coolly, not letting his poker face drop, "They both know what kind of life this is and what they're into. Don't act like both of them aren't dangerous."

"Not dangerous to _you_!" But how did he know that Naruto was a ninja?

"True enough though." Asuma admitted, not putting out his cigarette as he stood ready to do battle, "But then again you look like you can take it don't you big guy?" He was not about to let this man have the first move. With a stomp of his foot, Asuma kicked up several roof tiles that he caught and used as makeshift shuriken and hurled at Sakaki's head.

"Tch." The Karate master busted the tiles with devastatingly quick punches, only to find that after taking his eye off of the prize, Asuma was out of his field of vision, 'What?' He turned and took a lightning-fast swing at what he thought was Asuma only for him to apparently hit nothing but air, 'This person isn't a regular assassin.'

What sealed it was when he saw Asuma hurl what looked like a black egg. That was a seldom-seen Naruto weapon, but it had been used before. Unlike Naruto's however, he didn't bother targeting Sakaki directly with it, letting it burst right in front of him and throwing a big amount of black powder into the air.

A click of flint let off a spark that caused the powder to blow up dangerously close to him.

"Haisekishou (Ash Pile Burning)." Asuma had read the air flow of the night as clear as day and set the move so that the powder would blow in Sakaki's direction, as would the blast, "I can't afford to hold back against a man like this."

Because he still wasn't dead. He was able to avoid the detonation of the blast before it was set off. That was some great short distance speed, Asuma had to admit that much. The smell of smoking leather let Asuma know that Sakaki was on him again and the fight continued.

"Yamazuki!" Sakaki launched forward and utilized a punch aimed simultaneously at Asuma's head and body. The bearded smoker defended perfectly, again much to Sakaki's surprise. Turning his body to one side, Asuma lifted up a leg and used his opposite arm to wrap around his body while using the arm on the side that he'd lifted the leg from to protect the side of his head telephone-style, his arms intersected over-under at the elbow joint, 'This guy is actually good.'

Ha Shisei o Yurete (Swaying Leaf Stance).

That was a high-level defense. Simple, and with a point to it, and he used it flawlessly. It wasn't an iron defense meant for the user to stand strong in the face of a stiff assault, it was a limp defense meant to blunt the attack and spread out and displace the damage that the attack would have dealt. Basically, at best he'd managed to shove him with that last attack.

Instead of taking real damage, Asuma just found himself knocked nearly to the edge of the rooftop where he stopped himself and stood ready to fight once more, 'What a blow. If I didn't specialize in the Koppo Ken (Bone Principle Fist) method of the Hoken Juroppo Ken (The 16 Hidden Fists), that would have been way more dangerous to block.'

"Let's see what you've really got!" Sakaki launched into another assault against Asuma, watching out for attempts from him to guard by getting his trench knives in the way, wicked weapons that they were.

And this was the sight that awaited Naruto, as he finally caught up after hearing the explosion and quickly traversing the rooftops to locate the site of the battle, grappling hook in hand.

Asuma was nimble. He made Naruto look sloppy and downright clumsy in his movements by comparison, the moves that Naruto could see anyway. He avoided attacks from Sakaki that Naruto would never have seen coming.

After evading a flurry, Asuma feigned a punch with his trench knives that Naruto couldn't even see to force Sakaki to prepare to defend. Instead of attacking though, Asuma broke off and ran, prompting Sakaki to pursue, "Where are you going?" Chasing Asuma to the edge of a rooftop he was shocked when Asuma placed his toes to the edge and swan dove straight forward and over, "What?"

In disbelief he reached the edge and looked over only to see nothing, until a spike of killing intent was his only warning and the rooftop beneath his feet burst. Asuma effortlessly ripped through from underneath with a rising punch, "Zugaikotsu o Bunkatsu (Skull Splitter)!"

'He stuck underneath the awning!' Sakaki deduced while leaning out of the way and squinting his eyes to avoid the dangerous debris from the splintered roof form getting into them. The punch came close enough to actually scratch his face, 'I underestimated him! Damn it that was stupid!'

Despite missing for the most part, Asuma did land a secondary kick that hit Sakaki in the chest and allowed him to flip off and away, landing smoothly on the rooftop, "Time to lea-." He stopped when he noticed the foreign pair of eyes viewing the battle and turned to see Naruto watching from an adjacent rooftop, "…Namikaze's kid again."

Realizing that Asuma was staring right at him, Naruto froze. He didn't know what he had planned on doing upon getting there and finding Asuma, but now that he was there he had no idea what he was doing or what to say. What _could_ he say?

And he used his dad's last name, so he definitely knew him.

"You know Naruto?" Sakaki asked, regrouping mentally as he thought about how the fight had been going, "How the hell do you know this brat? Kid?" He asked, looking over at Naruto when he got no answer from either of them.

"Sorry." Asuma said with a frown as he directed his words at Naruto, "We weren't supposed to have to be the ones to do this to you directly, but Konoha can't have an unsanctioned ninja running around."

"Unsanctioned?" The words rang out in Naruto's head like the bells of an alarm, "What are you talking about?"

"You know what I mean. Don't embarrass yourself by making me spell it out." Asuma urged as he subtly reached for a weapon, "You weren't supposed to have lived to be this old. Like I said, sorry." With that, he leapt across an entire street with a lunge for Naruto to attack him.

From the corner of his eye, Asuma saw Sakaki somehow moving to intercept him before he could reach Naruto and he changed his trajectory in order to avoid Sakaki's kick and position Naruto between the two of them. Sakaki shoved Naruto to the side, but Asuma tossed a kunai in the direction that he saw Sakaki push him.

"Tch." He saw Naruto move after throwing the kunai and realized that he didn't kill him as Naruto had managed to somehow defend himself, and that he'd gravely pissed Sakaki off by trying to do his duty, 'What the hell? That kid isn't supposed to be alive, let alone claiming to be a ninja.'

That wasn't good news. His father's standing was growing shakier in his own age as a member of the Council of the Kage, and since the current method of dealing with the castaways of their society was his humane method of handling the children that were too much of a liability to become ninjas he was going to suffer after his report.

Either way, he still had a livid Sakaki, and he had to deal with that here and now.

"Fine." Asuma said, changing stances. He made a half-ram seal with his left hand and extended his right hand down with his palm parallel to the ground, "Raigou: Senjusatsu (Welcoming Approach: Thousand-Armed Murder)."

The scar-faced Karate master saw him take this stance, and decided to give it a try and take it on. From what he could see it wasn't an infallible stance, but it was different from the one he'd used previously. It wasn't purely defensive. It was both offensive and defensive, "One-thousand arms of murder huh? Let's test that out."

Before that could happen, a burning comet shell was fired at Asuma's head with a loud bang and he was forced to divert his attention to stanch out the fireball and somehow instantly counter, closing the distance on Naruto before he could even lower the tube he'd used to shoot the first one, "A firework!?"

He punched straight through it just as Naruto went to light up the second fireball, blowing the entire device apart and saving him from being killed by Asuma's attack. It was a doozy of a blow and actually cut him across the shoulder and arm when Naruto turned to brace for the damage. With him down he turned back to Sakaki to continue their issue.

"You should really stop worrying about the kid! Morote Enpi Tobi Hizageri (Double Hand's Elbow, Flying Knee)!" He managed to actually strike a devastating blow against the adult ninja using both of his elbows to smash Asuma in the face and his knee to kick him in the chest at the same time with a three-pronged attack, shooting Asuma down and across the street through a window and wall, "Kid stop being stupid and stay back!"

He said that on the surface, but had Naruto not done what he had, he never would have been able to deduce the weakness of Asuma's Senjusatsu stance or at least break it down enough to find a way to attack him safely.

Maybe Naruto had taken so many hopeless beatdowns from masters that even when he knew he didn't have a chance he was inclined to defend himself or put up the best fight that he could, 'And that guy was definitely master-class.' Looking through the hole that he'd created, Sakaki scoffed and growled, "He's gone?"

Was he going to circle around and attack again? No. There wasn't any reason whatsoever for him to fight against them to begin with. Sakaki at least.

But he specifically attacked Naruto twice when there was no reason to. He didn't do it to draw Sakaki out and take advantage of him, he didn't do it for any tactical advantage. He saw an opening to take the boy's life and tried to do it.

Naruto didn't say anything. The wound on his shoulder and arm was steadily bleeding and his clothes were heavily singed from the errant fireball, but he didn't seem to care. Instead he was staring at the kunai that Asuma had thrown at him. It had stabbed into the forearm of his right arm and was still there.

"Kid." Sakaki said, finally getting his attention and getting him to look up at him from where he was sitting on the roof, "Come on. Let's get you down from here and patch you up. You'll be fine."

The blond nodded and rolled off of the roof, attaching his grappling hook to the edge as he fell so that he could catch himself and easily descend. Sakaki just jumped straight down, landing next to Naruto before suddenly yanking the kunai out of his arm, "Yipe!" Naruto yelped at the sudden shock of the weapon's removal, "Come on with that! Now it'll bleed more!"

"Shut up, you're about to get stitches anyway so who cares?" His gaze then hardened a bit on Naruto who shirked back a bit, "Who was that man? Someone you know?" Because he seemed to know Naruto, "Why'd he come after you?"

"I don't know."

"Come on kid, he went right for you that one time. You weren't going to lay a hand on that guy even if you attacked him. He had to know that. So why would he go after you like that?"

"I don't know."

He did know. But he didn't want to talk about it. Not with someone that wasn't supposed to be from his world. How would you explain something like that to someone that wouldn't understand?

It really was true then. Aside from Tenten, this was the first Konoha ninja that he'd seen in four years. And unlike Tenten he wasn't confused. He wasn't questioning a thing. He knew who he was, and he knew who _Naruto_ was supposed to be.

For quite some time he'd been wondering, but knuckled along with his mission regardless, as if it were legitimate. Even if it wasn't, what else could he do?

He'd finally seen one, and before he could even get a word out edgewise he was set upon. This had to be told to Shikamaru and Tenten. But for now he had to keep his head up. It wasn't something that he could do anything about right then, if there was anything he could do at all.

"Oh my God!"

And he had to keep his poker face up for the sake of the fact that he was still around people, "Hey Renka."

"What happened to you?" She asked, checking over his injuries as his teeth took on a grit to keep from saying something out of pain, "You didn't try to actually fight that guy did you? You've got to be out of your mind!"

"I didn't _try_ to fight him, I kind of didn't have a choice." Naruto said, silently pleading with Sakaki to get him out of there before he got the full measure of the inquisition from the spirited girl.

Unfortunately for him, someone had to be the one to administer the first-aid, and since Sakaki had no idea how to do it and Renka seemed to be volunteering they would be there until she finished stitching him up, "Be tough brat."

"_All_ of my hate! This is more than half your fault!" He winced when he found himself pulled down to sit on the sidewalk while Renka cleaned his wounds, "Where'd you get the stuff to fix me that fast?" She damn sure hadn't been carrying it on her.

"Your bag." Renka dryly pointed out the open pouch that she'd found the first-aid equipment in before getting back to work on helping him out, "Now hold still dummy."

Oh yeah. Sometimes he forgot just how much stuff he tended to carry with him sometimes.

To his surprise, for such a rowdy girl she had a rather soft touch about her. It was a rare time in his life where someone had actually tended to his wounds (while he was conscious anyway), and unlike Akisame's brutal treatment of his arm, she was as gentle as could be about it… you know, given that she was disinfecting deep cuts and giving them stitches on the spot.

"You know, you're a lot prettier when you're not threatening me and yelling at me." Naruto commented harmlessly, looking down at his arm as Renka stitched it up to his shoulder, and one rivet went a little too deep, "OW! Why?"

"Stop being a baby." Renka insisted, glad that he couldn't see her rosying face from the angle that she was fixing him up from, "I'm almost done with this one. Stupid, impulsive… ooh!"

XxX

(Back in Town)

Following his late night stroll, Tanimoto Natsu returned to his rather large house, opening the front gate and closing it behind him only to find someone sleeping just outside of his front door. Seeing this person outside got him to stop for a moment and look around to make sure he wasn't on a practical joke show or something, "Sensei?"

A small pair of angry eyes opened up in the shadow that preceded the massive figure standing up and outright dwarfing the teenaged young man outright before he was even at full height, "Oh… apprentice. This is your home isn't it?"

Tanimoto didn't back off however, just staring up at the man wide-eyed before getting his normal calm, annoyed expression back on his face, "I'm pretty sure you knew that Ma-sensei. Do you want to come in?"

"Do you have anything stiff to drink?"

Tanimoto's eye twitched, but he answered regardless, "I can't buy alcohol in Japan sensei."

"Oh, well in that case I brought my own." The mammoth man said as he took a swig from a gourd that he kept tied to his hip. He turned around and didn't even bother getting the key from Tanimoto before basically walking straight through the door, utterly destroying it and a good portion of the doorframe with a normal stride.

He could have at least taken his boots off first. Etiquette damn it.

The blond Ragnarok member pinched the bridge of his nose before walking in after him. His master truly did have the look of an imposing individual to say the very least.

Tall and thickly muscled with tan dark skin and short, wild black hair, a beard to go with it. He had the look of a wanderer as well with his attire, as he wore an open vest with no shirt underneath, dark pants, and bands around his wrists. For a man that was heralded as being so outright dangerous, he had a smile on his face seemingly all of the time, though it wasn't a very happy one.

Tanimoto followed his master inside and watched as he dropped himself on an easy chair and kicked his feet up, still clad in his boots. He continued to drink from his gourd until he seemed to have gotten enough and wiped his mouth, "You look like you want to ask me something Natsu."

"I do." Tanimoto confirmed, grabbing a chair and pulling it in front of him, "Why is there another person in this town that uses Chinese Kenpo similar to your styles? The only reason you trained me in the first place is because I bribed you."

"That's right, so why do you think I'd take another punk kid as a student? I didn't even want you to begin with."

"Then why is he so astute at-?" Tanimoto just grunted angrily and tried to amend his question, "Fine. I'm just saying. His moves were diverse. Too diverse for him to be taught by someone that wasn't a complete master at all forms of Chinese Kenpo." Though Tanimoto didn't notice up front, this got his master's attention, "But the only person that could be is you, and with you being here for whatever reason-."

"What do you know of a man named Ma Kensei?"

"What? Nothing. But wait, your name is Ma Sougetsu. Does that mean that this man is your brother?" And the person that could have taught Shirahama what he knew about Chinese Kenpo? Why else would it have been brought up?

"A master on my level in regards to the Chinese martial arts, only he specialized in the softer forms while I prefer strong-fist styles. Apparently my younger brother left China a few years back." Sougetsu explained with an imposing smile as he swished around the drink in his gourd, "But to turn up here of all places? Heh, and he took a disciple outside of the Phoenix Alliance. Probably has to be an interesting prospect to get his attention."

"He's useless. Mediocre." Tanimoto corrected. There was no need for his master to get the wrong idea about one of his enemies, "The only thing special about him is that he's decent at using more than one style. That's his only saving grace. He's alright at a handful of styles and that's enough to confuse his opponents or give him an edge he otherwise wouldn't have had with five years of training. It won't work on me when the time comes."

From Tanimoto's tone, Sougetsu could tell that he really didn't like this person that he was referring to. Not only that, but he was definitely planning on engaging the disciple of Kensei in battle one way or another at some point soon.

With all of that being put out on the table, Sougetsu stood up and wandered his way out of the room to the back of the house, "Alright then, since I'm here and I've got a pretty decent buzz going, let's go see if you've been keeping up with your training boy."

"What?" Tanimoto replied, "Right now?"

"Yes, right now. You're not going to have the option of picking and choosing all of your fights so why would you get to with your training?"

He had a point, and if he turned him down he'd wind up paying for it dearly. Sougetsu was strong, and had taught him enough to make him a force for his age, but that still didn't mean that he wasn't a vicious bully. It was better to go and deal with what he wanted than questioning him and getting it ten times worse for no extra benefit, "Alright but just use the-."

*SMASH*

"-…Door. Nevermind."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

Sakaki and Naruto hadn't made it back into town until far past midnight, closer to around 3 a.m. in the morning. After bidding farewell to Ma Ryou and Renka, they'd gotten right back on the road after Naruto had made a promise to catch a train back out there and hang out with her sometime if she'd mellowed out more (and to get more ultra-cheap fireworks).

It got him a swat on the head from a red-faced Renka that he couldn't dodge due to being strapped into the sidecar, but she did still tell him goodbye earnestly and quietly enough. She even forgot until they were out of sight that she was supposed to grill Naruto on where to find her father.

From there, all the way back to town and to the dojo, Naruto hadn't really said a word. Not in amazement at the sight of a master taking on what he had perceived to be a ninja far more powerful than him, not in apology at Sakaki losing his collar and making their trip next to worthless for the original intent they'd set out with. Nothing.

As they quietly pushed the motorcycle through the front gates and into the garage, Naruto, sporting bandages on his right forearm and left arm spanning down from his shoulder to his elbow, yawned and began to leave the premises before hearing Sakaki call out to him, "Oi, brat."

"Yeah?" Naruto asked as he turned around, "What's up?"

"Look, I know whatever happened tonight really got to you." Sakaki said, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, "You don't talk to anyone much about how you lived before you started trying to raid this place, and no one's thought to start asking until now since you started showing up here in the daytime as a friend of Miu and Kenichi, but seriously, what was that back there with the assassin?"

"I don't know." It felt like he'd been saying that more than anything else that night to the point where it was starting to sound robotic, "What do you want me to tell you? What do you want me to say? That guy, he was a ninja, is that what you want to hear? He was _definitely_ a ninja. He fought like one, he left like one, and… other things."

"Why attack you though? You're supposed to be on his side right?" Once again Naruto clammed up and Sakaki let out an annoyed sigh that eventually gave way to a hapless look, "Alright look, you don't have to say anything about it. You've been on your own for long enough that you know if you want to get others involved. I'll keep my mouth shut unless it becomes a problem. I owe you that much for tonight at least."

A smile started spreading through on Naruto's face as he gave Sakaki a knock on the arm, "Don't get soft on me Karate Bum. You're not the same if you're not telling me about how you're gonna kick my ass."

"Another thing." Sakaki said with a pleasant look on his face as he clapped a hand down on Naruto's bad shoulder, seemingly on purpose, "Let's just keep the facts about this little excursion to ourselves. I don't think Shigure needs to know that I snagged you and dragged you off to Yokohama to take on a bounty for an assassin. If anyone, including her asks, tell her I was just bonding with you to try and get to know the newest disciple around here… even if you aren't my disciple."

Shigure was a scary lady without really trying much, even to him, and it was a good thing that Naruto healed so quickly. He'd probably be fine by the time she got back from her trip and she'd never know that Sakaki had almost gotten him killed.

That kind of drama was definitely not needed, because it would undoubtedly come with random attacks from metal instruments.

"I'm not a disciple here 'ttebayo." Naruto stubbornly protested before getting the gist of what he wanted, "But I won't tell her that you took me on a job or something." Good lad, "…I think she already knows."

"What?" And just like that, Sakaki felt a shadow descend upon him, standing on the roof of the garage that they'd just come out from, "…Brat, why didn't you tell me she was there sooner?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to hide that I'd gone anywhere with you!" Naruto exclaimed with a wave of his arms, "At least I warned you at all!"

"Naruto…" Shigure's voice was dangerously low, even for her usually quiet manner of speaking, but it still spoke volumes, "…It's too late at night for you to go home. Go into the dojo… and sleep on the floor until the morning."

"Yes ma'am." Naruto saluted quickly before scuttling off out of the line of fire. He could take a few hours napping on the floor if he had to. It was better than the fate that would probably await Sakaki, "I'll pray for you Karate Bum!"

He liked him more now, but he wasn't going to put his body in harm's way like that when someone started swinging or throwing metal things around.

"ALL OF MY HATE BRAT!" The leather jacket-clad master shouted at Naruto throwing his own helmet onto the ground hard enough to pulverize it, "I thought we just had a moment you little turncoat shit!" The sound of sliding metal caused him to clam up and try appealing to Shigure, "Now let's keep calm here…" Ironic hearing that from someone like him, "…The kid's fine. He's got a few scratches and bumps and bruises that'll buff right out. It's not like I took him out and he got 'Apachai'ed'. He's not gonna scar for life from anything that happened tonight!"

"You put my disciple in harm's way... without my permission." Shigure said slowly, the genius of all weaponry brandishing her shiny sword in the moonlight, "I hope it was worth it."

"Can't we do this in the morning?!"

"No."

XxX

(Days Later – Homeland Island)

It had been one hell of a journey for Asuma to meet a shoreside contact and make his way off of the Japanese mainland to reach the island of origin for all Konoha ninja. In that time he was able to recover from the injuries he'd sustained from Sakaki's final attack against him.

There was no need to continue that battle. He had been compromised by his face being seen while in the act of performing his job, and there would be no way that he could operate with the same efficiency as before, thus he had to abort the mission.

He'd gotten most of it done though, more than the original contractor of the mission had expected to be taken down while he'd been in Yokohama Chinatown.

Now all that was left was the report, which he gave, recalling everything that had transpired in chronological order.

Even the last part. The part that involved the boy.

"And you're certain about this?" Sitting in an elevated position above Asuma were several figures clad in white and black kimonos, all of them of advanced age above Asuma's. The one that had spoken had a wrinkled, weathered face with a grey goatee and liver spots, "You cannot be mistaken in this regard Asuma."

"I know what I saw dad." Asuma insisted, lighting up a cigarette in front of the Council of the Kage, "It was like looking right into Minato's face when I first saw him way back when. Minato had a kid didn't he? The kid I saw wasn't a grad."

"You see Hiruzen?" Another elderly man said. He wore the same clothes as the rest of the council, but he had spiky black hair, an 'x' shaped scar on his chin, and bandages wrapped around most of his head, including one eye, "Your bleeding heart method of dealing with the washouts is finally resurfacing to bite us."

"It is the first anomaly that has come to our attention after twenty years of being implemented." Hiruzen argued right back in return, "Would you rather things return to the old ways when children that were not deemed talented enough were killed? Would you like to be the ones doing the deed Danzo? Could you live with yourself?"

"Yes. I will do whatever is needed to maintain Konoha's way of life." Danzo said coldly, "These children stopped being children the moment they stepped foot on this island and began training. Your little merciful change of heart from twenty years ago is going to be the death knell for our culture, and I think it's time to go back to the way things were."

"It never sat well with me personally." A hulking, dark-skinned man with slicked back white hair said in support of Danzo's point, "It's too dangerous. It's nice to be sentimental Hiruzen-dono, but we don't have that luxury as we are. I'm not saying that things should go back to the way that they were so suddenly, but the boy that we know of should be dealt with now before he becomes a liability."

It wasn't exactly what Danzo wanted, but it was a start. He was going to lobby for the eradication of the washout boy no matter what. At least he had the support of his fellow kage A in that regard. He would have been the toughest sell, and after him the remaining kage that had yet to vote would concede as well.

For most of them that had lived through the days past and had learned of what would have become of them had they failed, the old ways were best, not Hiruzen's granola-style of leniency for failure. Sure, most of the cast out younglings were undoubtedly killed in the line of duty, feeling that they'd died with purpose, but it was only a matter of time before something like a survivor coming forth would rear its head like it just did.

The dominoes proceeded to fall with kage after kage voting for the plan of action to take care of the problem that had arisen.

Asuma shook his head in near disbelief. If his intuition before about the affairs of the Council of the Kage wasn't enough, he was seeing it firsthand. In his father's old age he was losing influence as far as politics on how Konoha business was to be conducted went, 'Oh dad...'

"It is settled then." Hiruzen said, hiding his disappointment with a business-like tone, "For the sake of Konoha's future the former trainee Uzumaki Naruto, and all other discovered castaway students… are hereby marked as targets for death." And it broke his heart to say such a thing, but he was one kage against a council of nine, "It will be carried out by genin-level shinobi."

"Genin?" Danzo repeated as if tasting something foul, "Why genin?" Fresh off the island ninja? No thank you.

"I agree with Hiruzen-dono." A third kage said, a man with a perfectly stoic expression. He had long black hair, and featureless white eyes that almost made him look blind, "This should be a matter handled by genin. How else do you expect them to gain experience? Eventually they will be expected to run real missions to kill high-value targets if they progress as we hope all genin will."

Besides, genin with a minimum four more years of proper training under their belts than this boy could be considered more than good enough to handle him.

"Fine." You couldn't win them all, and it was a step in the right direction of the Konoha that Danzo wanted to leave behind one day, so he'd let it stop there for now, "If this is what you believe Hiashi-dono, elect your choice of a team and dispatch them accordingly."

Mistakes needed to be erased. The best way that Konoha worked was that when the less people knew of them outside of their general clientele the better, and even the knowledge of a survivor trainee was far too precious.

"I've got just the person in mind to lead the team." Hiashi said calmly, though under the surface he seethed internally at the name of Uzumaki Naruto. He'd cost his house the next heir to taking on the reins of carrying on the ninja line. Never had the Hyuuga line's direct descendant ever _not_ been a ninja, but because of that boy…

Because of that boy his eldest daughter had to retire before she'd ever even graduated. Had to come home without being designated a ninja of Konoha, because of what he'd done to her. This was the one good thing about the softer side of the system that Hiruzen had pushed for decades back, that she was allowed to return home, but now he wanted that system returned to the deadlier times of old.

All so he could ensure that Naruto paid for his ignorant barbarism, for what he'd done to the female heir to the Hyuuga name.

His genius nephew Hyuuga Neji would assure that much.

* * *

**Okay, it's about to get serious. This is going to be the first step in how things really start to change here, so for everyone thinking that they know what to expect based on one canon storyline or the other, I think I can safely assert that YOU DO NOT! RAAARGH!**

**Or maybe you're in my head, in which case you probably do know what to expect… but that's cheating so it doesn't count.**

**Anyway until the next time peeps of all ages, Kenchi out.**


	12. What It's All About

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. It was never meant to be mine I guess. Hah… sigh.

**Chapter 12: What It's All About**

* * *

Since he would either not get to sleep until very late, or he would wake up extremely early before his alarm, Naruto usually had plenty of time to do something semi-productive.

Before school the sounds of a few notes being played in the halls of Naruto's home rang out before a false note was plucked, "Damn it." Inside of his room Naruto balanced on a small pole, working on a basic balance exercise while simultaneously working on something else.

After being subjected to Sakaki Shio's horrifically dangerous motorcycle riding, Naruto swore to whoever was looking after him in the vast, vast sky that he would actively work to do certain things if he survived the trip up to Yokohama and back. Namely, the seemingly easiest of these things was to learn how to play guitar.

Despite being the most realistic of his previously made promises, it was still not easy. He just so happened to have absolutely no natural musical acumen whatsoever, much to the chagrin of his housemates.

"It is way too early in the morning for this!" Tenten shouted, sticking her head out of her own room to chide Naruto from a distance, "You've been screwing with that thing for a week. Sign up for lessons or something, or sell it."

"There's something wrong with this thing." Naruto said as he tried to play another basic chord only to botch it and grunt angrily to himself, "You know, it's the guitar."

At that point Shikamaru walked into the room lazily and took the instrument straight from Naruto, adjusting it as he saw fit before working out a quick chord or several much to Naruto's chagrin, "Nah. This action's good." He said, putting a smirk on Tenten's face, "It's your hands. You've got stupid fingers. Practice."

"Why the fuck do you know how to do that?" Naruto asked, taking his guitar back from Shikamaru with a frown on his face. If Shikamaru ever actually put forth the effort to learn how to play a musical instrument, Naruto would reach into his trusty bag and eat the first thing that he pulled out.

Shikamaru just held up his fingers that now had nearly invisible ninja wires between them before turning to leave the room while whistling a tune into the air.

Figuring that he just sucked at it because he was a beginner, Naruto set the guitar to the side and sighed. He'd been depressed for more than a few days and spending money on a random buy like an instrument didn't do much to take that away, "…So they really did get rid of us didn't they?"

"Yeah." Tenten answered, shifting uncomfortably as she leaned against the doorframe, "I'm sorry."

"No, I always knew I think." Naruto said, touching at his chest from his right shoulder to his left hip, "Right around the time I got the scar right here. I got hit, I woke up and the first thing I thought to myself when I realized I wasn't dead was… why would anyone think a genin could do this? How could a genin take on these people and win; Ryouzanpaku I mean."

But he put that thought aside because of how much that little truth would hurt if it really did happen to be the case. He wasn't _that_ dumb. Having Shikamaru lay it out for him every time it came up didn't go into one ear and out the other.

What else was he supposed to do though? He just kept plugging on forward. Maybe if he did the impossible, maybe if he actually accomplished the mission that a jounin couldn't execute they would have accepted him. He could never do it though.

"Screw it." Naruto said with a shrug, "I said I was going to be the best kage there ever was. Who said that I could only be one by being a Konoha ninja?"

Tenten could only smile and shake her head at Naruto's reasoning and made to leave before a passing thought stopped her, "Hey, I've heard about that scar that the Muay Thai guy gave you a hundred times by now from both you and Shikamaru, but I've never seen it. Is it really that bad?"

He chose to answer that question with another question, "Have you ever seen me without a shirt on?" The scar wasn't really something he was comfortable with, because it was the only one he'd ever gotten in his life despite the number of injuries he'd sustained, and it really was that awful.

"No." Tenten said, "You always wear one, even in the house."

"There's a reason for that."

XxX

(Outside of Tokyo, Japan)

Sitting alone in a completely empty room, a young man clad in a kimono meant to be worn solely on the premises of the property had his eyes closed while seemingly meditating. In his right hand he held onto a paper that had the most important writing on it that he'd ever read.

Abruptly, his eyes opened and he stood up, 'It's time.' He thought to himself, "Time to go and meet the team."

He had long brown hair that reached his waist, tied at the very end, and pale eyes that seemed to be featureless at first glance. The expression on his face was calm and stoic, sharing the look that his kage-class relative Hiashi did, as did many members of this ninja family.

They had a lot of pride. The Hyuuga Clan had been one of the top clans left in Japan when the time came for the survivors of the old times to come together and form Konoha, and they remained diligent in their duties to the life of the ninja. The first child of family's head had _always _been a ninja, and a highly talented one as well.

Except for this generation's.

But at least his father had been Hiashi's now deceased twin, so when Hiashi's daughter was forced to retire and return home he was heralded as being just as close. But it wasn't the same to him, it wasn't the same to Hiashi.

And now, the bastard that had done the deed that had sullied the clan name, both of Konoha and of Hyuuga, now was slated to pay.

'He should have died alone in the field like the failure that he is.' The boy thought to himself, tightly gripping the paper in his hand, 'But apparently it is my fate to personally deliver him from this world.'

He had to say that this little touch of 'fate' was something that he didn't have a problem with.

Leaving the room and shutting the door behind him, he started down the grand old hall before he affixed his eyes on a person coming his way. It was as if she was summoned by the violent thoughts of what he wanted to do to the person who wronged her in the silent reflection room, "Hinata-sama." He said with a bow before realizing that such a thing was almost meaningless to her.

Hearing the voice of her cousin got the girl to perk up considerably, "Neji-niisan." She greeted happily with a gentle voice comparable to a light bell in the pleasantness of its sound. She had pale, featureless eyes just like Neji's and the rest of her family and long dark blue hair that fell down her back to her waist. As was the designated outfit for moving around in the daytime around the house she wore a kimono that was solid white in color, "Have you received a mission? You only go into the silent reflection room before you take missions."

"Yes, I'm to head out now." Neji said with an apologetic expression on his face, "I'll return as soon as I can though. This won't take long…" He said with a subtle bite at the end of his voice, "…I promise."

The tone of his voice was picked up by Hinata who frowned at the end of his sentence and reached out a hand to touch his face, "What is it that's making you so angry? Is it the mission?"

It was unfair. It was unfair that someone so wonderful had to suffer in the way that she silently did every day for years. It made Neji's blood boil, but he wouldn't let it show. Even if she was unable to tell from his face she would pick up on it somehow.

"No. Actually I'm happy to take this mission. I couldn't think of another one that I would want more." He was completely earnest. He wanted to do this, for her. For what was done to her he would get the revenge for her that she wasn't able to take on her own, "I'll tell you all about it when I return."

He backed away out of range of her touch and her face changed as if she were lost before smiling as Neji backed away and turned around, "Be safe." Hinata said as her eyes didn't follow Neji's departure. When he left though, she reached for the door to the room he had just exited and walked inside to just stand in the middle of the floor, 'Neji-niisan is powerful. The most skilled genin of his graduation class. He should be fine.'

As her foot shifted along the floor she heard the crumple of a paper; Neji's mission outline. But as she reached down to pick it up and hold it in front of her face, she could only think about how she wished she could see what was on it to find out what he was meant to be doing.

What was it that made him so angry? She had to find someone else in the house that could and would read it for her, because she wasn't able to.

XxX

(Later That Day – Kouryo High School – Physics Laboratory)

Takeda and Ukita both just looked at each other while staring at Naruto sleeping with his head down on one of the tables with his goggles down over his eyes, "Weird guy." Ukita commented as he adjusted his sunglasses on his face.

"Naruto." Takeda poked Naruto on the top of his head while some of the other members of Niijima's little group crowded around to observe their Operations Commander getting his slumber on, "He's been acting strange for the last few days."

Really, he hadn't been nearly as boisterous or as brash as he usually was. He'd stopped using his club activity of cross-country as an excuse to knock around and mess with everybody else in their clubs. This was enough of a sign that something was wrong, he was hanging out in the apparent HQ for Niijima's yet-to-be-named organization bychoice.

And now he was sleeping. _Sleeping_. During the daytime. During club time. He was still wearing his school exercise clothes for crying out loud! He'd come in ten minutes after club time had started and plopped down face-first at a table to slumber.

"Mmf." Naruto snorted, face twisting up while he slept, "It's too much. Stop."

"Heh, he's dreaming that he's running." Miu pointed out with a giggle but stopping when she saw Naruto's leg twitching rapidly for no reason, "…Or kicking something. One or the other." She hoped. His face was awfully serious.

Turning to amicably greet the lovely girl, Takeda put on his smoothest smile possible, "Hey there Honey. What brings you here of all places? Don't you have your club to get to?"

"Gymnastics Club is canceled for today, so I decided to follow Kenichi-kun and Naruto-kun here to see what this place was all about." She had to say, between the other students involved basically worshipping the fighters such as Kenichi, Takeda, Ukita, and Naruto like deities (and Niijima too due to his strange mind control over these masses), it was a rather enjoyable atmosphere, "I don't know why they don't want anything to do with it?"

"Really?" Ukita asked dryly as he pointed to a group of members off on one side of the room performing the group signal en masse, which seemed to be a combination Vulcan/Nazi salute, "You really don't see why they wouldn't want anything to do with it? This shit is weird!"

Meanwhile on the other side of the room, Niijima was beside himself with how well things were going. He hadn't even needed to meddle and still, yet another Fist of Ragnarok had fallen, "This couldn't be working out any better. The Eighth, Seventh, Fifth, and Fourth Fists have all lost! That's half! Wahahahaha!"

"Don't sound so excited about it! And don't go around acting like you actually did anything to help with most of that!" Kenichi returned, shaking Niijima violently by the collar, "You helped with one, maybe two at most!"

"But why wouldn't I be excited old buddy? This is working out like a dream!" The spindly Nijiima gave Kenichi several hard pats on the shoulders, seemingly ignoring the band-aid clad boy's ire at the situation, "As long as you keep on doing whatever you're doing to make yourself stronger, this'll be over before you know it! That's what you wanted after all right? Once Ragnarok is gone things around here will be perfectly safe again for everyone."

Using his sense of justice to get him to chill out… the bastard.

Well that _was_ what he wanted after all. And they'd already done such a good job of it in their particular neck of the woods. Kisara's gang had been beaten back so many times that they barely even came to school anymore. No one had seen Koga the Kicker in ages, and even Kisara only popped in and out now.

Then again, that wasn't really because she was afraid. She just really didn't like the humdrum environment with school and would rather spend her time training so that she could get her win back over Naruto.

Without Kisara around there was a vacuum in regards to punks wanting to try and claim the school as their turf, but with the ever-present threat of the group of powerful fighters that had been willing to stand up against Ragnarok still walking around every day, no one really wanted to make a move. It was deterrence at its finest.

Speaking of Naruto, he was still completely out of it and sleeping, almost to the point of drooling on the table. And it was here that Kenichi caught Miu staring intently at Naruto. She had been doing this at times for the past week since they'd visited Naruto's home.

When he wasn't paying attention she would take the time to stare at him as if she were looking for something in his face. At first Kenichi had figured that it was because Naruto had been acting off for the week, but it wasn't just that. If it was she would have just come out and asked him about it directly, or at least brought it to someone else's attention.

"Whoa, what's going on here?" At the door three of the would-be members of Niijima's group seemed to be holding up Tanimoto Natsu at the door. In a bid to help the unfortunate young Drama Club member, Kenichi decided that having some sort of influence over these types would come in handy here, "Hey, it's alright, he's fine. That's just Tanimoto-kun."

He didn't have any qualms with Tanimoto in the slightest. As far as Kenichi saw, he was a banner student, great at everything he did, a good person, and just a generally peaceful guy. Also, Naruto kind of liked the guy because of his attitude, so why not?

Tanimoto clutched at his chest in relief upon being left alone by the bottom-feeding members of the organization, "Oh man, didn't figure I'd find the new gang in this room."

"We're not a gang." Kenichi replied nervously. That was the last thing he needed; to be compared to the very people he was trying to get to leave him alone, "Seriously. That guy put this all together." Kenichi said, pointing over at Niijima, "Blame him."

"Well he was the one that said that you can easily snap down whole oak doors with the flick of a finger and that he-." Tanimoto pointed over at Naruto, "-Could take a delinquent's pocket knife without him even noticing and cut a group of twelve with it before the blood of one even hit the ground."

"No… stop hitting… I'm sorry." Naruto muttered to himself, leg still twitching as he slept. Due to the angle he was at, no one saw the look of anguish on his face while he dreamt, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it."

"Right, because this is the face of a cold-blooded killer." Ukita said sarcastically, trying to poke at the back of Naruto's head the way Takeda had earlier only to wind up eating an elbow to the ribs for his troubles, "Oof!"

The judoka's pained grunt roused a bleary-eyed Naruto from his sleep as he lifted his head and looked around while smacking his lips, "What's up? Time to go home?" He then noticed Miu looking at him closely and rubbed at his face, "What is it? What's on me?"

Subtlety had obviously not been the name of her game as she backed off rubbing her hands in front of herself defensively, "No, no Naruto-kun. I was just wondering why you were so tired lately."

"Oh." Naruto shrugged and started working the kinks out of his body, "Don't worry about it. I've just been training a bit harder than normal after I get home at night with Shikamaru and Tenten." The former really hated to train, but he was coerced into doing so by the pressure of the other housemates that insisted, "That's three times a day not counting the Cross-Country Club stuff…" He then looked at the clock on the wall and paled, "…That I completely blew off today! Hell! Where's my tire?"

"Outside Naruto-sama." The group member that always seemed to be carrying around a flag with whatever experimental design Niijima seemed to try and come up for them happened to be on it. What was that guy's name? Oh yeah, Matsui.

Naruto gave him a salute of thanks and jetted out into the hallway to hook himself up to the massive tire he'd been dragging before taking off in a sprint to try and get back outside, praying that his absence hadn't been noticed.

How a guy running around the school with a tire tied to himself that was twice his size would go unnoticed was beyond him, but a man could hope.

He rushed away so quickly that Miu hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise about what she really wanted to ask him about, "Ah, Naruto-kun wait!" But he was already blazing a trail down the hall, almost out of sight as he sped his way to the nearest staircase and downstairs exit

That had been the theme of the week. Whenever he was at Ryouzanpaku he was either working too hard with Shigure to talk, or he was too out of his head following training to talk before he would stumble home. In school he'd sleep all day until he was startled awake for whatever reason.

He'd been odd and out of sorts, and Miu couldn't bring up any questions as to what Naruto could recall of his life before he was sent off to be a ninja.

Both Kenichi and Tanimoto noticed this, with the latter also seeing Kenichi's confusion over just what Miu's current deal with Naruto was. It seemed like she wanted to ask him something but either didn't know how or never had quite the right venue to do so.

"I think she likes him." The blond actor pointed out under his breath to Kenichi, "Fuurinji-san and Uzumaki-san. They've known each other for a long time haven't they? And look at her now." True enough, Miu looked rather forlorn at Naruto's sudden departure from the room, "I think she's trying to come up with some way to confess to him."

Kenichi looked absolutely mortified at the thought, 'No, not those two. I already asked them about it way back and Naruto even laughed at it.'

As awkward as outright asking them up front had been, the assurance that he was nuts eased Kenichi's mind in that regard, although Naruto's laugh had been rather troubled when the topic had been brought up. So did that mean something? And Miu looked awfully embarrassed in hindsight. She didn't even say anything one way or the other.

Did she really think that way about the two of them? The girl that he was so sorely attracted to… could she really be interested in his best friend in that way?

Tanimoto had a point. They did know each other for longer even if that time was mostly as enemies, but both admitted that there was never any real malice between the two of them despite being on opposite sides.

Aside from that, Naruto was everything that Kenichi wasn't. He was openly braver, stronger as a combatant, bolder and quicker in the actions he decided to take, and he was suited to the life as a martial artist by way of his practice of the ninja arts.

"That Naruto-sama is a pretty cool guy." One of the other nearby group members said to another upon watching Naruto tear ass out of the room, "He takes down hordes of gangsters and doesn't afraid of anything!"

"Hey." Takeda remarked after hearing that, chewing on a strand of grass in a rather chill manner, "I don't afraid of anything either."

Off-putting grammar aside that was Kenichi's very point, one of them at least, as far as Naruto was concerned.

"Kenichi old buddy! Help me come up with a name for our glorious group!" Niijima threw himself at Kenichi and dragged the unaware martial artist away from a shocked Tanimoto who just allowed it to happen out of apparent surprise, "We can't go unnamed forever! People need to know who we are now if we're ever to take over the world!"

"Haruo, let go! I don't care about naming this group of yours!"

"Oh don't be ridiculous! You're the Assault Commander! Of course, your input is vital!"

As he pulled Kenichi away, his boisterous grin fell as he looked over his shoulder for a split-second at Tanimoto who seemed to drop his male idol expression for something blanker and less caring, but only for a moment.

Niijima Haruo was a master of manipulation, and he could tell when he saw and heard it what Tanimoto had been trying to do to Kenichi. He got him away from that sort of talk as fast as he could. Planting that sort of a seed in his head unnecessarily was only going to cause strife. But why?

He must have realized that Niijima had caught on, because he gave him a glance that could only be construed as murderous before quickly departing the room.

XxX

(With Naruto – Outside of the School)

"I'm the best~~ around! No one's ever gonna keep me down!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs as he dragged his tire down the street a few blocks away from the school per his route. He was cutting a pace faster than he usually did in order to make up for lost time, "Thirty minutes asleep? I'm stupid!"

He had to catch up to what he was supposed to have done that day or else he'd feel like a real prick to the captain of the club. Since no one else in the club could really keep up with him and the pace he ran his practice routes at, he operated on the honor system for the most part. Of course, on his routes he was supposed to loop back through where most of the other runners practiced so that he could let them know that he was still doing his thing.

He hadn't shown up once today outside of the first meeting before everyone went off to run their sets, and if that didn't wind up being suspicious he'd really built up some goodwill with those folks.

It hadn't occurred to him that he could take several shortcuts and round back to the starting point at the same time that he would have made it there if running normally to see if anyone had noticed, but he was too busy trying to get his proper training in to worry about skirting it.

"Hey old man, uptown isn't for squatters. Head downtown if you want a bridge to sleep under. This is our meeting place."

Naruto stopped while in the midst of crossing a bridge that spanned a river and looked over the edge to see a pack of adult gangsters heading underneath it for some reason. He didn't like the looks of it and slowly snuck his way down the grassy hillside to get a peek.

And it was there that he found the aforementioned troublemakers crowding around a man that just so happened to be sitting next to the river serenely, despite the mounting threat surrounding him. He didn't appear to be _that _old. He had long spiky white hair covered by a dark green bandanna, a wart on the left side of his nose, a pair of red lines trailing down from his eyes, and a vintage pair of round-framed sunglasses.

His clothes seemed to be meant for the long haul as he wore a dark green turtleneck underneath a red haori and brown pants. Strangely enough he wore a pair of wooden sandals to complete just how odd he looked… like some kind of weird drifter hippie or something.

"Did you hear me or what?" The first gang member said, brandishing a pair of brass knuckles on his fists, "We've got serious business to talk about gramps, so shuffle on out of here before you get sent downriver."

At first there was no response until the older man turned his head their way and lifted his round-framed sunglasses off of his eyes to sit at his forehead, "Eh? Pssht. You small-fry are the next generation of Yakuza? So much disrespect hiding that weakness of yours. Whatever happened to the days when the bark of a gangster matched their bite? You seem more like posers or bottom-feeders to me."

That social comment didn't go over very well with the riffraff as can be imagined.

"Alright old man." Another seething gangster said, pulling out a tanto knife and holding it forward, "If that's how you want to play it-."

The sound of a tire bouncing was the soundtrack of each of the thugs getting nailed with Naruto's tire and knocked over the homeless man's head into the river that carried them all away.

Holding on to the rope attached to the backpack on his back, Naruto's feet slid through the grass and dirt as he swung the tire around and let it slam back onto the ground with all of its mass crashing down, "Man that was heavy." But it worked a lot like his weapon of choice.

Huh… maybe he'd found a new strength training method by accident? If only he could get a big-ass tire for use of his own instead of constantly borrowing one.

"Hah, that was hilarious!" The older homeless man barked with a slap of his own thigh as he watched the gangsters continue to try and fight against the current of the river, "A kid took all of you tough guys out with one move!" He seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much, "Maybe there's some hope for the next generation yet somewhere in this wor-!" He turned around and faced Naruto only to freeze in place with one leg high off of the ground as if he'd seen a ghost, "M-M-Minahoughuh…"

Naruto just stared at him and tilted his head to the side curiously, "Say what now? Who are you old guy?"

'Good God he looks just like his parents. That look is just like Kushina's whenever she was confused.' The odd vagabond thought to himself before regaining his composure, "Ahem, I'm just your everyday, sexy, awesomely worldly knowledgeable drifter/rolling stone/transient sage of the modern age."

Why exactly did he have to pose to say all of that?

"…Right." Naruto said, tilting his head even further than before, "Whatever you say bub."

Yeah, he definitely got the attitude and the mannerisms from Kushina. This kid was going to be a handful to deal with, "Anywho… thanks for helping me out there kid. Really timely of you to pick your spot like that."

"Yeah." Naruto said with a big, smug grin, hands on his hips, "Akisame tells me I'm good at showing up at a bad time for other people." He was sure that it wasn't a compliment, but with the way the philosophical Jujitsu master usually spoke in even and pleasant tones it was hard to tell when he was being insulted or not so he just took everything he said as a compliment unless it was obvious that it wasn't, "Don't worry about it old man. Anytime. Later!"

He had to get going. If he showed up at Ryouzanpaku and wasn't good and exhausted to begin with Shigure was going to work him to the bone for thinking that he was slacking. He kind of had been today, at least during his afternoon conditioning training, but it wasn't on purpose!

And with that, Naruto started off running again while dragging an oversized tire along with him, leaving the older man behind to watch him leave.

The odd older man just stared after Naruto and scratched his cheek in confusion, 'Wait… something's wrong. I told Sarutobi-sensei to send me word when he graduated so I could be his genin contact.' Naruto didn't even know who he was. He was supposed to be briefed on his contact.

He knew that he didn't really stay in contact with Konoha at large but still, this was something that had been important to him. He'd been waiting ever since Minato and Kushina's death for Naruto to graduate so that he could be assigned to him.

Naruto was definitely at graduation age, and he looked like he was well situated even though he should have just left the Homeland only recently according to the traditional season for graduation and dispatch.

…So what the hell?

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Train Station)

Standing in front of train station for more than his share of a few hours, Neji waited unwearyingly, carrying a modest travel bag over one shoulder as he leaned against a pillar. It had been a bit of an exercise in patience, but when his team was supposedly coming from all sorts of corners of the globe it was to be expected that it would take them varying points of time to reach the rendezvous point.

Due to his being out on the street, he wore a loose khaki shirt, almost robe-like with horizontal straps running down the center across the front and sleeves that drifted over the top of his hands and brown pants. A very nondescript look if anything.

He'd seen the arrival and departure of so many Shinkansen to and from the station it was like a blur, until he noticed one person his age walk up to him with an open hooded dark jacket that was up over his head. Underneath that he wore sunglasses and a dark shirt with a high collar that ran up and covered his mouth. Neither of them said anything to the other, but merely stared until Neji gestured to the side with his head and the other young man took to the other side of the pillar to wait as well.

In a few more hours another pair of particular teenagers got the attention of the newly comprised duo. Unlike Neji and the other person, these two were much more talkative, judging by how they were animatedly talking to one another as they got off of their train.

One was a boy with messy brown hair and sharp black eyes that looked rather animalistic in appearance. He seemed to have odd red fang tattoos on his face, and due to this was given a wide berth by the general population as if he were a gangster. His state of dress didn't help to debunk that theory whatsoever as he wore a black leather jacket with his hands shoved casually into the pockets, and a pair of black pants.

Next to him seemed to be a rather lovely blonde girl that he was quite familiar with due to how they were talking. Her blue eyes danced with mirth with every laugh she took at whatever they were talking about, definitely some kind of sign of familiarity.

Her hair was in a long ponytail down her back with a red hairclip on her left side and a bang that nearly covered her right eye. Unlike the rest of them she seemed to be rather stylish, wearing a purple skirt with slits down the sides of the legs to reveal much of her shapely legs, black heeled sandals, and an open white jacket that came up short on her torso with a light lavender top pulled tight against her chest underneath it.

They both made their way over to Neji and his first tagalong, the boy grinning widely upon reaching them, "Well, well, well… a straight blast from the near-past eh Shino? I didn't expect to run into any of you guys so soon after graduation."

"Right?" The blonde girl said in agreement, "I wasn't expecting to see anyone else's ugly mug for a while if at all, let alone just a few months later."

So they did know each other. That would be fine for Neji, "I'm aware that you're all one year behind me. For the purposes of our mission I've been deemed the leader. Let's go." Since he had arrived first he'd already gotten a place to stay until the mission was complete, and that was where they were to go to brief.

They looked to be quite the motley crew as they walked down the street, as most of them didn't even seem to be the same nationality… because they weren't. But due to the unapproachable air that Neji exuded it was largely ignored.

"Alright." The brown-haired boy said once they reached the safehouse and set their things down, "Since we're all for team introductions here I guess I'll start. Yo. The name's Inuzuka Kiba; my family is based in South Africa. Number of complete missions since graduation: 2." Kiba concluded with a wolfish grin.

Up next was the silent, hooded one, "My name? It is Aburame Shino. Do I really feel like telling you where my family is originally from? No, I do not." He said rather cryptically, getting on Kiba's nerves as he sounded like he was trying to be aloof and cool or something, "Number of complete missions since graduation: 3."

"Hm." The girl said in thought before smugly placing her hands on her own chest while going into her own introduction, "Yamanaka Ino, from Germany. Number of successfully completed missions: 2."

Kiba, Shino, and Ino all knew each other, so most of that was just retreat information except the mission count, though they did seem interested in hearing

Neji nodded in understanding. That sounded about right. They had only been sent out back to their original homes a matter of months ago, so the number of missions sounded right while they were receiving their supplementary training from their families. Ninjas didn't take a frequent number of missions a year, with four being the standard number for a genin annually. It varied for higher ranking shinobi based on how difficult and long-term the missions were.

"So what about you?" Ino asked, getting close to Neji to try and look at his face. He was rather handsome in her opinion, and he carried himself like he knew what he was doing even though he was a genin like them. He even said he'd only been one for a year longer than they had been, "Are you going to introduce yourself oh fearless leader?"

Neji regarded her with a casual eye, not acknowledging the closeness of the girl either negatively or positively, but figured that if he was going to lead this team he might as well get it out of the way. Laying down the law was probably best, especially since the Kiba kid looked to be rather rowdy, "Of course. My name is Hyuuga Neji, with Japan being my family's place of origin as you can probably figure. And my number of completed missions? 19."

At that, each member of the would-be team showed shock in different ways at hearing the number given. Kiba's jaw dropped, and Ino took several steps back away from Neji as if he would harm her just by standing that close to him. Shino's brow furrowed, but other than that he didn't take a step or let it show in any other way.

That mission count was way more than they had, combined. That was far too many missions for a genin to have under their belt only a full year out into their career. It was unreal. How quickly did he finish his assignments, within the span of a few days or so? And did he even get hurt while he was on them?

A minute smirk appeared on Neji's face after he gave it a moment for that info to sink in, "I've been told I'm very efficient."

No kidding.

"You know our target if you've all received the same message as me." Neji said, his voice gaining an edge to it, and he got nods from each of his teammates, "We're going after the dropout ninja Uzumaki Naruto." If he was correct, this group happened to be the graduates of the year that would have included Naruto, "…Does anyone have any problems with that?"

"None at all." Kiba replied first with a bit of a growl, "That guy is a rabid dog after what he did. I wondered what happened to him." Even though it had occurred years ago, that sort of thing wasn't easy to forget, "I was hoping they'd put him down after what happened to Hinata."

After all, they hadn't known about what happened to the failures until now. They were given their 'missions' meant to cast them out, and if they survived they had their chance to disappear. If they came up underneath Konoha's eye, what was to stop them from coming up on someone else's radar where they could be used against them?

Neji's eyes drifted over to Shino who merely shook his head, and then to Ino who seemed scared at first, but took a deep breath and found her resolve. She'd never been on an assassination assignment before, and she too remembered how brutal Naruto had been. Kiba was right, after that incident they really let that kind of person loose?

"Whatever the mission is-." Shino said, bringing his own opinion into the conversation, "-It is our job to see it through, even if our target was supposed to be one of us. Why? Because the fact that he was supposed to be one of us makes it all the more important."

This was good. Neji was rather pleased with the way that the team was shaping up to be. While no one would likely be as motivated as him, they all were willing to do the deed. It was how they were taught since childhood after all. Everything came second to what was needed or requested by Konoha, no matter what they were asked to do.

As youths they were prepared and conditioned to die for their clan, thus they were most certainly prepared to kill for it.

XxX

(Later That Evening – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

While Kenichi underwent training his Jujitsu technique with Akisame by throwing massive stone statues carved for the intent of practice, Naruto was busy in his own portion of the dojo building with his work.

"Show me." Shigure demanded, watching Naruto switch stances from his common one with the manriki-gusari.

Instead of the usual method of swinging the weighted chain on one end for quick ranged attacks, Naruto held both ends of the chain in each hand while set in a common fighting stance, arms with the chain itself resting slightly extended behind his back.

This was the basic posture for the Kajoushuki (Spiral Cycle) stance. While allowing Naruto to warm up that afternoon before beginning in on him, Shigure caught sight of Naruto practicing the stance and found it interesting since she had never even begun to teach him such a thing. It was the furthest thing from how she fought that she could think of.

On each arm the chain was wrapped around his forearm twice for added defense in case he ever desired to block, and it was a wide stance, so it encouraged a free range of movement more than anything else.

"Where did you learn this… technique?" Shigure asked slowly, sitting off to the side inside of the dojo as she watched Naruto stand before her as if he were ready to fight. It was what she'd asked of him to show her after all, "I can't imagine where you would have received it from."

If she were to be honest, a part of her was a bit jealous at the thought of Naruto getting lessons on weaponry from someone outside of Ryouzanpaku. He was her disciple, and she was teaching him whatever she could think of that would be useful to him: how to properly tie up targets in the least amount of time, how to properly cut and stab while utilizing his kunai in combat, all sorts of things.

Naruto's eyes panned down for a moment before they snapped right back up with pride, "My mom. Well, my mom's notes." Naruto stopped and fished into his backpack to pull out the ragged old notebook that he'd been going over for years trying to find things that he was actually capable of learning, "See?"

Inside there was indeed a dog-eared section labeled for the Kajoushuki, complete with crappy little chibi drawings for illustrative explanation purposes.

Shigure's eyes perused what was written and drawn before she lowered the entire notebook to look into Naruto's eyes, thus making him very uncomfortable, "How can you… understand this?" Some of those kanji characters could have been any of several different things.

Because Kushina used to write him letters, so he got used to reading that chicken scratch a long time ago. That was why.

"I just can." Naruto said, defensively stuffing the notebook back into the confines of his bag, "I think it's a cool technique, and it was something she really wanted to teach me too when I was big enough to use weapons like this."

Shigure nodded before snatching the manriki-gusari out of his grasp. Ignoring the indignant cry of 'Hey!' from the blond teen, she quickly stuck a replacement weapon back into his hands; the kusarigama, "And how does this feel?"

Naruto blinked and retook the Kajoushuki stance, his eyes flickering back and forth to the sickle in his right hand, "…Much better actually. Why didn't mom put this in the chapter for the stance?"

"Most likely because it would have been more dangerous… to you, without properly training it beforehand." And with that explanation she took the kusarigama back away from him before placing a hand on the top of his head, "There's probably more to it that she wanted to teach you herself."

From their corner of the room, Akisame tried to keep his focus on overseeing Kenichi's throws, but found his attention directed over to Naruto despite himself due to the conversation transpiring between Naruto and Shigure.

Ugh, this was no good. He couldn't let his mind wander like that while he was in the middle of training his disciple. It was entirely unfair, and it was a good thing for once that his time had elapsed as his concentration was steadily slipping, "Alright Kenichi, good work for today in learning the Sumokudori. Make sure to keep practicing, as it's not the kind of technique you want to use in a fight if you're not entirely certain how to execute it."

"Yes sensei." Kenichi said, plopping down on the floor in a heap, sweating profusely due to the nonstop work, "Oh man…"

Shigure nodded and removed her hand from Naruto's head, "You're done too. You can go home."

"Whatever you say." Naruto said before beginning to depart, whistling a happy tune that his day of hard work was over. He wasn't going to be training late night with Shikamaru and Tenten tonight. He had to get some kind of downtime. Before he reached where he'd left his shoes though he heard a slight metal sound and turned around to see Shigure throwing shuriken at him, "Oi!"

This was the sight that Miu walked in to see and she gasped only to see Naruto whip out a kunai and block them all, getting her and Kenichi who had panicked as well to breathe a sigh of relief, 'Well you can't say that her training isn't effective.'

She made Naruto learn how to block projectiles after hearing from Sakaki that Naruto had managed to be wounded by a single thrown kunai. That would probably never happen from a single weapon being thrown ever again after the week he'd had afterwards. This was actually the first day where Naruto didn't go home covered in light cuts and band-aids.

"An attack can happen anytime." Shigure warned before Naruto could even open his mouth to go on a tirade.

She hadn't thrown anything sharp at him all session long. He was overdue.

"You… I… what in the…" Naruto sputtered, trying to come up with something to say and finding himself at a loss, "…All of my-! Gah!" Eventually he gave up and threw his hands into the air, slinging his backpack down over his arm again as he left and headed for the wall that he jumped up onto. Turning around he was about to say more until he caught sight of something terrifying and decided to just take off, "Later!"

Going outside, Miu turned up to the roof where Naruto had been looking to see her grandfather sitting up there drinking tea as if that were normal, "Grandfather, why did you do that? You know Naruto-kun is afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" Hayato said as if he were feigning ignorance to that fact, "Why in the world would the boy be afraid of me?"

There were dozens of reasons why. The most pressing of which being that Hayato had been gone on some kind of trip for quite a while, and Naruto had been more relaxed around Ryouzanpaku with his presence not hanging over his head like an overseer. Naruto however hadn't known that he'd returned, so upon so suddenly seeing him on a nighttime rooftop like Batman he panicked a bit.

It was like it was something that had been ingrained in his psyche for years, because it was.

Speaking of 'years'…

"I've got a question." Miu said, speaking candidly as she jumped up onto the roof with her eldest family member, "I know this sounds strange, but did I know Naruto-kun back when we were little? I can't remember but it sounds familiar, and I know he couldn't either so I haven't even asked him about it."

"It's a long story." Hayato admitted kindly, "I'll tell it to you eventually." It didn't please Miu in the slightest, but the blonde girl had to let it slide for now. It wasn't like she could actually force anything out of the old man, "So I take it this interest in our ninja friend is because you've discovered a little bit more about his past."

"You're saying that like you knew something that we didn't Elder." Kenichi said as he came outside and looked up at the low-lying roof. His face then scrunched up in gross understanding, "Er, you did know everything that we didn't, didn't you?"

"I'm not saying that I knew that Naruto-kun was cast out." Hayato said, hiding his face behind the cup of tea he was sipping at, "Why would you suggest such a thing?"

"That cup is empty!" Miu said, holding up the still mostly full pot of tea right next to his head, "Well if you knew that, why didn't you tell him sooner!"

"Because he already knew." Hayato said, his voice losing all traces of the Elder's usual silliness. This was the serious Fuurinji Hayato, "Naruto isn't as foolish as that. I could see it, anyone could see it." He explained, "That boy's eyes are his greatest weakness. If you simply looked into them in the early days of his coming here you could see the difference that was in them mere months later. He can't hide anything from you if you just know what to search for."

It was true. Twelve-year old Naruto's eyes held differences from the eyes of sixteen-year old Naruto, even in the shine that you could find in them. Hell, just recalling the sight of his eyes in the pictures at his house compared to then and now was enough to prove that point, "Then why did he keep trying to do what he did? Why is he doing it now?"

"You have to understand many things about Konoha to know why." Hayato said, "He was raised from early childhood with the sole purpose of fighting for them, with his every objective and most of his day-to-day actions dictated to him by those people, and then he was let go, just like that. Can you possibly imagine trying to adapt to being on your own so suddenly?"

And he'd done an amicable job of it.

He had steadily been weaned off of the dependence by force (many different kinds of force) to the point that it was no longer there, but it was more than that. The entire thing about wanting to be the greatest Kage, it was real. And when he realized that he was unwanted, what better way would there have been to prove them wrong and validate himself, even if they never took him back? By accomplishing the mission they ditched him with.

Even then, it was still never truly proven to him that this had been the case, until he'd been attacked in Chinatown by the assassin. It was rattling him, and they all knew it, but Shigure didn't know how to approach it in a way that would do any good.

But ninja problems were their own. Their martial arts underworld rarely intersected in with the problems of the underground martial arts world that all of them were embedded in, and even when it did it was only for a moment usually, like with Sakaki's run-in with the ninja in Chinatown.

That was the way it always had been. The two worlds didn't mix.

XxX

(Ragnarok Hideout)

"Now Siegfried too…" Odin said as he sat down on his throne, thinking aloud about what was next to the nearby Berserker and Freya, "The only Fists that haven't been defeated yet are you two, Hermit, and myself. What do you think?"

Berserker didn't say anything, just standing strong, leaning on a wall nearby chewing gum. He didn't seem to care about anything going on, and that was what Odin liked about him. He fought, he did what he was told without argument, and that was all.

Being this way of course, he didn't really have any input… because he honestly couldn't have cared less.

"Of course." Odin said sarcastically with a wry smile, "Why didn't I come up with that. Thanks so much." All he got was the pop of a bubble in return.

"I can defeat Uzumaki." Freya insisted, having finally returned from her training sabbatical only to find that another Fist had fallen in the form of the Fifth (Siegfried), "I just need to get him in a situation without the interference of that group supporting him."

It would be so much easier if they knew where he or Shirahama took up residence. But they were very good about leaving the school premises in a way where others couldn't follow more often than not, and with Loki having been kicked to the curb they'd lost their spying capabilities anyway.

"So you do all know Uzumaki."

All eyes turned to the front doors of the warehouse where a young man with strange blank eyes entered. He seemed to have absolutely no fear of showing up unannounced in Ragnarok's HQ and after eavesdropping as well.

No one had even heard the doors open or close, nor had they even noticed him until he revealed his presence.

"That makes this a lot easier. I had heard that he was at the center of a conflict here." Neji said as he walked further inside and stood with his arms crossed over his chest, all of the present Ragnarok members in his sights, "All I want from you is the location of Uzumaki Naruto. Nothing more."

"Why?" Freya asked, feeling a bit wary of this person. Was he crazy, or was he just that confident in his own abilities to address them in such a forward manner. If he knew about Naruto's current place in a 'war' of sorts with them, he had to know who they were, "What do you want with him?"

"I want to kill him."

Just like that, the temperature of the room seemed to drop at the blunt, callous declaration. For once, Freya's face actually registered shock to hear that someone actually wanted to kill Naruto. Legitimately kill him. His goal was not to beat him to a pulp, to maim him, or to put him in the hospital, but kill him. End his life.

"So just tell me where he is, and I'll be on my way." Neji continued smoothly as if he hadn't just talked about killing someone, as if he were discussing something as casual as the weather.

Odin seemed intrigued at the presence of this newcomer that had the gall to just walk right in on them and make a demand, "Tell me, for what reason do you want to kill Uzumaki Naruto? An interest in joining Ragnarok perhaps?"

Tons of aspiring fighters that wanted to join the ranks of the Eight Fists wanted to defeat one of Kouryo High School's troublemakers to earn themselves a spot.

To his consternation however, Neji just scoffed and smirked, "And why would I care in the slightest about that? Joining a cute little street gang like this one is beneath me. 'Owning' a neighborhood as my territory? I have real-world business to attend to thank you."

What a horrid insult. The Fists were an actual collection of legitimate martial artists with the potential to become some of the best in the world.

Odin narrowed his eyes at Neji behind his glasses for the slight and with a faint movement of his head Berserker rose from the wall, finally getting a chance to relieve some boredom with a fight. Neji just rolled his eyes.

"I didn't come to fight riffraff. I came to kill Uzumaki." A nonplussed Neji said as Berserker started walking towards him, "If you don't know where to find him, just say that you don't."

"I don't really care." Berserker said, cracking his knuckles through his gloves, "Odin said to fight you, and even if I didn't want to do it for the fun of it, I'm actually afraid of how strong he is."

"Foolish." Neji said in reply, "The one you should be afraid of is me."

Odin curiously raised an eyebrow at the sight of Neji's movements, 'He moves similarly to the way others say that Uzumaki walks, never making a sound with his footsteps, but he's taking a stance that looks like a Chinese martial art.'

The muscular Berserker swiftly moved at Neji with extreme intent to destroy, but before he could even throw his punch it was as if Neji had sidestepped into the shadows.

"Berserker behind you!"

"Don't move." It was already too late as Neji stood back-to-back with the spiky-haired blond young man, holding two of the fingers on one hand behind him at the front of his opponent's neck, "I'll say it again. I didn't come to fight riffraff." He said, staring straight ahead at Odin's eyes. That was the only one of this pack that could possibly defeat him.

Freya couldn't believe it, 'The way he moved… it was like Uzumaki's. I couldn't figure which direction he was going to move in from his steps.'

Odin saw through it better though, finding that his movements had absolutely nothing to do with the type of feints that were common of Naruto's fighting method, 'That was the circle walking practice of Baguazhang.' He'd never seen it before, but he'd heard about it.

It was a basic principle of movement that came with the style, but to utilize the most rudimentary function of the style in such a combat-appropriate manner and as quickly as he did. More like circle running.

'This guy…' Berserker thought to himself. He could feel the sheer intent to kill drifting off of this young man. He wasn't just blowing smoke, and just because Uzumaki Naruto was the one he wanted to kill didn't mean that he wouldn't go straight through him to prove a point or get to his goal, 'I feel like if I so much as swallow he'll do whatever he planned on doing to my neck.'

"I see I made a mistake." Neji said, never tearing his gaze away from Odin who didn't back down and kept his own eyes locked firmly with his own. Neji respected that. This was a person that under different circumstances he could have called a friend. But a ninja he was not, and that was the only other way that Neji would have found a use for him, "Very well then. I'll take my leave."

The moment he felt Neji's body move, Berserker turned around, ready to retaliate violently against the person that had subdued him, but Neji was already out of his field of vision again. By the time he realized that, the front doors had closed, marking his departure.

"That's enough." Odin commanded before Berserker could try to attempt a pursuit, "You can't defeat that man. You already know it."

Well in the end, odd run-in aside, nothing had to change. In reality, it wasn't their problem. This wasn't the kind of person out to make a name for themselves as a fighter by getting one over on Ragnarok, and all they wanted to do was kill someone that was their enemy to begin with.

At least until-.

"I can't just sit by and let something like that happen after knowing about it Odin." Freya said, seemingly having wrestled with the decision in her mind ever since hearing about it. She was torn between letting the cards fall where they may, and stopping Neji on the spot, "I'm Katsujinken in my philosophy. I can't let someone be killed if I know it's to happen, enemy of Ragnarok or not."

Why did she have to care one way or the other? Odin wasn't Katsujinken. He couldn't have cared less whether his opponents lived or died after he was through as long as he was victorious. The same went for Berserker and Hermit. Killing wasn't out of the question for them.

Freya seemed to be waiting on some kind of response from him, but she didn't receive one. All he did was just stare at her dully as if she'd said something that should have gone without saying one way or the other.

"Well?" She said after waiting for a few moments, "Are you going to try and order me to keep from warning him? Because I'm afraid that will have to be one order I'm choosing to disobey."

"I'm for it." Berserker said, much to the surprise of the others. He never talked about anything. Him speaking his mind on any subject was a rarity, "…Uzumaki and Shirahama are smashable anytime. That guy… he's not from around here."

'And he more than likely didn't come alone.' Odin thought with a pursing of his lips in contemplation, 'That person was a ninja. Another one.'

They were coming out of the woodwork apparently. First Uzumaki, then it was revealed that Freya's former underling Tenten had been one as well, and then there was the strange boy that had defeated Loki, "Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But perhaps in this case… we should go with the devil we know as opposed to the devil we don't know."

The status quo was more than likely for the best when it came to any given choice of possible situations. Who knew if this was just a one-shot deal, or something more permanent? If it was, this was already bad because Neji had somehow found their base. First and foremost they would have to find a new main base.

In the end he had to wind up making a call. It wasn't that difficult to make either since Neji had outright rubbed him the wrong way upon their first meeting. Perhaps such a spectacle would have worked had Berserker been the strongest member of Ragnarok, but he wasn't. Odin was, and he was significantly stronger than Berserker head-and-shoulders. He'd never lost Neji's position for a moment.

That wasn't to say that a fight against him would be easy by any means. Neji could have defeated Berserker and Freya even if they'd tried to fight him together, but once again, Odin was stronger than both of them as well by a significant amount.

"Kisara knows how to find him during the daytime, so tell her to contact him tomorrow."

XxX

(Outside of the Ragnarok Hideout)

Neji returned to a rooftop a block away from the warehouse where Kiba, Shino, and Ino had been waiting.

"Well?" Ino asked, waiting animatedly for the news of what was to come, "How did it go? Do we have a place to find him?"

"They were useless." Neji spat miserably, "Unwilling to cooperate." He was still insulted that their leader had the gall to ask him if he wanted to join. Neji would have found the idea funny if it weren't so insulting, "But they will be a problem."

"How?" Kiba asked, crouching on one knee with a raised eyebrow, "That guy with the mesh glasses that Ino found out about said that they were fighting against Naruto." They'd paid Loki good money for that intel, along with information on Ragnarok's hideout. It wasn't easy to convince him with the rumors flying around that he'd been kicked out of Ragnarok.

People tended to hold grudges over things like that.

"Did you try being cordial?" Ino offered with a bright smile complete with batting her eyelashes for emphasis, "People usually treat you better when you act nice… and when you're gorgeous like me. Maybe I should have gone in with you and charmed them?"

"If you'd have flirted you probably just would have upset the woman that was there."

"Humph."

Shino pushed his sunglasses up on his face. Strange to still be wearing them at night, but he seemed to be a strange person, "So we have nothing yet. Why do I say this? Because it has already been one day and the location of our target hasn't been located."

"We have the location of his high school." Neji amended, "Though attacking him in the daytime would be a terrible option. A last resort if we are unable to truly locate his home." If nothing else it was something to fall back on.

"Daytime's out of the question. If he saw us he'd notice us, no doubt." Kiba grumbled, punching the rooftop beneath him, "He was stupid enough to get kicked out, but he's not so dimwitted that he doesn't remember what we look like. It's not like our class was particularly big."

"He's never seen me." Neji contested. And he'd have liked nothing better than to get a look at Naruto's face at the moment that he killed him, "I could go up to him in the daytime, right in front of him, and-."

"It doesn't matter." Kiba interrupted before Neji could finish his moot point, "Your eyes look enough like Hinata's that he'd probably think he'd seen a ghost. If me, Ino, and Shino remember what he did and it didn't even involve us, you know he remembers. There's no way he's ever gonna forget."

XxX

(Later that Night – Naruto's Home)

"Rah!" Naruto sat up and tore his way out of his covers before realizing that he'd woken up from the same terrible dream he'd been having all week long. A cold sweat ran down his face and he looked around his dark room, running a hand through his hair.

Again. That goddamned dream again.

All week since he'd finally had it confirmed for him and started coming to terms once and for all with the fact that they'd been ditched, he'd been having the same dream. The most vivid memory of the last thing he remembered doing on Homeland Island before being shipped out.

He could still feel the blood on his hands as he looked down at them. That was how real the memory felt.

"Fuck this." Naruto hopped out of bed and crept downstairs. He didn't need to take any care to be quiet, as his footsteps were quiet by nature, just like Tenten's, just like Shikamaru's, and it was a good thing too because he'd been getting up frequently every night, "…Had enough of this not sleeping crap."

He'd been having the dream not only at night, but during the day when he tried to make up some of his sleeping in school as well. It seemed his terrible memories weren't strictly nocturnal. At least he hadn't flipped out in school or something.

"Every night…" He walked to the bathroom and turned on the light before sinking his head against the mirror, lightly tapping his forehead against it thrice with a sigh. He shook his head against the glass before shutting off the light and heading back to bed. Maybe he wasn't tiring himself out enough during the day? He'd have to totally break himself tomorrow to try and get a good night's sleep, "I didn't mean to hurt her. Never like that. I don't even remember hitting her, like I wasn't myself."

Making it back to his room he got back into bed, facing the window only to then pull his covers over his head at the sight of the full moon.

The way it was glowing was mocking him. It looked just like Hinata's eyes.

* * *

**Whoo! Let's get dangerous!**

**Alright, we'll get dangerous next time. Goodbye now.**

**Kenchi out.**


	13. The Price to Play the Game

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I really wish I did though. I could use the money because I've got a ton of college loans to pay off very soon and I don't really like the idea of being owned.

_(Flashback – Four Years Prior – Homeland Island)_

_Twelve-year old Naruto's eyes scanned around the darkened hallway of one of the indoor training facility. It was meant to replicate the kind of indoor setting that someone would more than likely find themselves in while on a mission. This example was meant to be akin to an office building. _

_The students and Iruka were observing from a central area while Naruto and the person he was paired up with for the spar engaged in a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek that would culminate in conflict and would stop when Iruka commanded over the PA system._

_It had been a few weeks since Iruka had given Naruto his last after class lecture, and Naruto had been taken to the infirmary after he was told that he was sick. Apparently two weeks had passed while he'd been away. It had probably been a very serious illness, because they'd had to put Naruto under for his safety according to the medical staff._

_He felt fine, but admittedly he did feel quite exhausted when he'd woken up and was cleared to leave. He'd heard somewhere that you were tired after recovering from being sick, so it didn't seem odd to him, thus back to class he went, and Iruka received him as normal, getting him to fall back in line with the rest of the students in his year._

_Which lead to now._

'_Why's my heart beating so fast?' Naruto wondered to himself, feeling as if his heart was leaping up into his throat the longer this spar went on. He hadn't even found his opponent yet, 'I don't get it, am I really _that_ tired?' Because this didn't seem normal in the slightest, 'Gotta find her and end this quick.'_

_Taking a chance, Naruto reached out to a nearby wall and knocked on it three times before continuing on down the hallway and doing it again. He did it one more time before pulling out a camouflage sheet in the same color as the wall that he used to try and hide himself in case he'd been heard._

_He wasn't going to fumble around in the dark trying to track the girl he was pitted against. He sucked at tracking more than anything else and she was great at it, so his best bet was to lure her to him._

_Iruka was probably going to bitch him out later, but if he got the 'W', he could say all he wanted to about the dangerous way he managed to get the advantage and about how a more savvy and/or experienced enemy would have done something to make him pay. Naruto would just grin all the way back to the dorms._

_There wouldn't be any footsteps. None of them made footsteps. He couldn't see through the camouflage sheet either. A set of eyeholes in the sheet would have been a dead giveaway._

'_They would stick me with the second-ranked student right out of the hospital wouldn't they?' Naruto thought to himself jokingly. The lots were random, and he knew that, but griping to oneself was just one of the things that one could find fun about the constant work of the training, 'I can beat her though. Never fought her before to tell how, but I can.'_

_And then he felt a presence ghost across him in front of his sheet. No footsteps of course, again because none of them made them at this point, but he could _feel_ it. And that was his signal to spring an attack._

_In a quick movement, Naruto dropped his sheet and leapt at the back of the enemy, wrapping his arms around their neck and snaking his legs around their body to wrestle them down in a chokehold. If it was in right it would only take a few seconds for the body to go totally… limp._

_Wait, it was already limp._

_Crap, a dummy. He'd been had. He could even see the sticks that had been used to push the dummy down the hall first as a decoy. Tricky little minx. He was going to have to steal that one._

_Naruto turned his body in the direction he felt a second person and used the dummy to protect himself from a low kick meant to punt him painfully. He was good enough that he knew how to handle a fight and this he was well aware of, tired and soreness-wracked body or not._

_Taking the brunt of the initial kick with the dummy, Naruto shoved it away from himself and back-rolled up to his feet to land in a crouch and face off with his enemy. So the hide-and-seek portion was over and now it was time for the action phase of the spar._

"_Yo Hinata."_

_As usual she didn't really respond to him. She never did. Even in the near pitch dark he could see that she had averted her eyes to keep from trying to look directly into his own. Weird girl. But she was good. He could feel the rate of his heartbeat increasing even more as his vision started to pulse. Was he having a heart attack or something? There was something about this exercise that was strange…_

_His nails bit into his hands hard enough to draw blood. He wanted this fight more than he probably should have on any other day._

**Chapter 13: The Price to Play the Game**

* * *

Naruto woke up before the same damn dream he'd been having time and time again for over the last week could begin to fully take hold of him. Once again he was taking time off from Cross-Country Club, but this time it was _after _he'd actually finished his projected running exercises. He still had a good twenty minutes left in practice and didn't have anything else to do, so he chose to knock off for a moment in the middle of the field outside.

Sleeping in the center of his big-ass tire of course. Where else?

"Maybe I need a bigger tire to drag?" Naruto thought to himself aloud as he had his goggles over his eyes, staring up at the sky that was gaining flecks of orange in it as the afternoon dragged on, "This is getting too easy. Shigure's gonna kick my ass today. I'm not even tired."

Gorgeous weapon-obsessed babe as she was, she really liked the fact that she never had to waste too much time working on Naruto's strength and conditioning since he was fully willing to do that job himself, and he'd been doing it good until he'd started to outgrow his own recent endeavors to handle his own affairs.

A few solid thunks off of the side of his tire got Naruto to pull himself out of the seat of tire's hole to look up to the side that it came from, getting sight of Nanjo Kisara holding her beret down with one hand, the other planted on her hip. Upon realizing she had his attention she removed her hand from her hat and two-finger saluted him, "Yo Uzumaki."

He had to thank her though. Feeling her presence walk up on him let him get out of that dream before it got to the bad parts. He'd relived it enough in his head to put pen to paper and write out a screenplay of the whole thing.

"Yo yourself." Naruto said, sinking back down into the tire hole that was his cushion, "Take a seat. Cross-Country Club isn't gonna start coming back for ten more minutes."

Surprised that he was actually somewhere she could find him for once, she wasn't that taken aback by his friendly attitude even after they'd fought twice already, "How do you know I'm not here to fight again?"

"If you wanted to fight you would have turned the tire over instead of just waking me up." Naruto yawned, throwing his hands behind his neck casually. The Shikamaru influence in him was on full display here, "I've dealt with you enough to know that much even if I'm still shit when it comes to girls."

Rolling her eyes before actually accepting the previous offer and sitting down on the tire that Naruto was still tied to, Kisara crossed her bare leg over the jean-clad one and watched the students that were doing conventional track get the last of their runs in for the day.

She then came to the conclusion that running outside of actual races had to be so boring. Practice must have been like purgatory. How someone as manic as Uzumaki put up with it was beyond her, but then again in that same vein he was sleeping in the middle of the field.

"I already know where I'd find Takeda and Ukita. Where are Shirahama and the Dairy Cow?"

"Doing their club stuff. You shouldn't call Miu-chan that either. What'd she do to you other than having bigger boobs?" Open mouth, insert foot. Luckily Kisara was probably willing to do that for him herself so Naruto didn't have to, 'Crap. Don't kick, don't kick, don't kick!' But when she didn't kick him he figured something was up.

She was indeed sorely wishing that booting his skull over the fence was on her docket for the day, but it wasn't, "Shut up idiot. I actually came here for a reason."

"So you _don't_ want to hang out? That sucks."

"Odin wants to talk to you about something." And just like that the rather cavalier mood of the conversation shifted dramatically, "He says there's someone out to get you." She saw Naruto open his mouth for another smartass remark and cut him off beforehand, "Not Ragnarok."

What? But he hadn't pissed anyone off other than Ragnarok.

…Okay, that wasn't true at all, but other than Ragnarok he hadn't pissed anyone off that would actually be willing to go after him, or would have the capacity to do so.

"So what's the big deal that he actually wants to talk to me, if that's really true?" Naruto asked, pushing himself up out of the center of the tire to look over at the redhead better, "It's not like someone wanting to beat me up is new."

"How about killing you, is that new?"

"What?!" Naruto was told that just as he had managed to free himself, thus resulting in him falling forward off of the tire onto his face. He promptly bounced back up as if he'd never fallen, "Kill me? Who the hell wants to kill me?!"

"We don't have a name, but he definitely knew yours and that you were feuding with us." Kisara ignored the dirt and grass stains on his exercise clothes and the clump of grass caught between his goggles, "You gonna be alright about that?"

'No I'm not going to be alright! Somebody actually wants to murder me!' Naruto screamed as loud as he could in his head. That however wasn't the cool approach to take in front of a girl, so he patched on his biggest gin and gave a thumbs up, "Oh yeah. Thanks for worrying."

"I'm not worried." Kisara said, crossing her arms and turning away from him, "If you want to thank anyone for the warning, thank Freya-chan. She was about to up and quit Ragnarok if Odin didn't say that she could warn you about this. I don't care either way personally."

Liar. Bad liar.

Still, Naruto stared at her suspiciously, "This ain't a trap right? Because the last time this happened it was a goddamn trap."

"That was Loki, and I'm sure you've heard we kicked him out by now." Naruto nodded guardedly, prompting Kisara to continue, "Besides, the guy after you didn't really make any friends with what he pulled to ask Odin for information."

It was clear from the request given to her to find Naruto that Odin would much rather deal with the (apparently talented) idiots that had been fighting with Ragnarok than some killer from parts unknown, especially since they'd be getting enough of that once the issue with YOMI began.

"Hey Naruto!"

Takeda jogged his way over upon seeing Naruto's telltale gigantic tire in the distance, but slowed down to a walk upon seeing that Kisara was there as well. Then he figured, what the hell did he care? Naruto already proved he could beat her, and with his left arm back in commission he could fight too.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted help me hit pads or something for a bit, but it seems you're busy trying to romance Kisara here."

Smooth Takeda. Really smooth.

Unlike the last time someone had said something to irritate Kisara, this time she did throw a kick, and Takeda had to use his footwork to the fullest just to avoid it. He wound up losing the piece of grass that he'd been keeping hanging out of his mouth but he didn't get kicked yet, so that was good, "Shut up you dumbass boxer!"

Great, way to piss her off.

"Hey, hey, hey! Focus up here!" Naruto barked loudly to get attention back on him, "Back on the guy that tried to kill me please, 'ttebayo!"

"There's someone trying to kill you?" Takeda stopped trying to dodge Kisara due to the surprise of Naruto's last statement, and wound up getting kicked in the mug for his troubles, "Hey!"

With her aggressions temporarily taken out, the slender kicking specialist jumped backwards onto Naruto's tire, using it as a springboard to jump farther away still before addressing Naruto again, "There's nothing else to say." She stated grumpily, buffing her nails on her shirt while Takeda glared at her and held his face, "Oh, apparently he's a ninja too. That's all. So are you going to meet up and talk with Odin or what?"

The gravity of the very last thing Kisara had said before her question was still sinking in to a numbed Naruto, so much so that he didn't even feel himself nod, mutely consenting to a meeting before Kisara walked back over to him and grabbed his hand, placing a paper into it before closing it and making sure he had a grip on it.

"Go to this place when you're ready." It was the hideout for Ragnarok. The reason Odin had no problems with Naruto going there to meet was because it had already been compromised and they needed to find a new one anyway, "Only the Fists are allowed at the place, so we're the only ones you'll see there. Our gangs won't be showing up, so don't take yours. That's fair enough right?"

"So what is this?" Takeda asked, rubbing the bruised cheek that Kisara had given him, hoping she hadn't cracked his jaw or something, "Are you really saying that this is some kind of peacemaking thing?"

"Don't ask me." By now Kisara was walking away, waving off his question over her shoulder as she left, "Like I said, I don't care. This is Odin's whole thing. Later." And this time, Naruto didn't stare at her ass as she left, something Takeda noticed and immediately deemed strange.

Naruto still looked rather frazzled from the looks of him, "…I don't think I'm going to Ryouzanpaku tonight." Naruto said before unhooking himself from the tire and walking away off of the field, "See you tomorrow Takeda."

'Is this for real?' Takeda thought to himself in a bit of disbelief, 'I mean, dealing with people like what we've been facing is one thing, but for someone to actually be out to kill one of us… is this what it's going to be like?'

Another ninja wanted to kill Naruto?

XxX

(Inside of the School – Gardening Club Room)

What a relaxing hobby it was to care for plants.

It was so much simpler than the constant battles for one's own physical wellbeing that Kenichi constantly found himself involved in. There was no one trying to cave his skull in with their fists or feet. No mindblowing strain placed on his body just to keep up and survive what was going on around him. No scary thugs and fighters out for blood. It was just the fresh smell of all of the flowers and other plants, the water, and the tranquility. Nice people too.

Looking up from his task at watering a row of low-maintenance plants, Kenichi caught the eyes of fellow club member Izumi Yuuka and waved at her in a friendly manner, getting a shyer one in return before she turned away and went back to her work of a similar nature, red-faced as she became.

Oh well. Shy as she was for whatever reason, she was still a pleasant girl, and really the only company he had in the club since they were the only two members at the moment. Naruto would drop by every so often while he was doing his own running thing, but he wasn't a member and his presence seemed a bit off-putting to the rather timid Yuuka.

She had the right attitude anyway, because there was still work to be done. Turning around to find other plants that needed tending to, Kenichi let out a startled shout when someone he'd never seen before turned out to be in the greenhouse as well, "Oh man!"

He felt silly at being startled upon finding that he had been alarmed just from the presence of some girl, mostly because he had startled her too, "Oh, I'm sorry!" The girl apologized in a wonderfully light-sounding voice, "I was searching around your school when I smelled the flowers that had been planted in front of this greenhouse and I came in. I didn't mean to be so quiet."

She was a painfully pretty girl with long dark blue hair and pale featureless eyes that were rather beautiful for her. Her clothes of choice happened to be a lavender and white jacket zipped up to beneath her collarbone, a navy blue skirt, and black heeled sandals that wrapped around her ankles.

"No, no, it's alright." Kenichi said, his heart rate lowering back to normal when he deemed the girl in front of him harmless, "It's the first time I've ever had anyone apologize to me for their being quiet." Hell, his best friend could be as loud as they came when he wanted to be, "So you like flowers?"

"Oh, yes." The girl said, returning her attention back to the beautiful planted flowers that she had been admiring moments before, "Gardening is a bit of a way to spend time, and I enjoy pressing flowers as well."

"So are you a student about to transfer in?" Taking a tour of the school? It was feasible enough, and she wasn't dressed in any kind of school-going attire or carrying a bag, "This is a nice-. I mean this is a safe-." He stopped himself before he could say that the people here were nice or that it was a safe school, because they weren't and it wasn't, "Err… nevermind."

The girl just giggled lightly, probably because she already knew this to a certain extent, "No, I'm not transferring here. I'm actually looking to find someone." At that, her face took on a melancholy smile, "Tell me, do you know of a boy named Uzumaki Naruto? I remember him having wild yellow hair and the brightest blue eyes… and a very wonderful smile."

She knew Naruto? It definitely sounded like she knew him.

"I was told that this was where he went to school and I wanted to find him again. This is Kouryo High School isn't it?" She seemed to be embarrassed as if she had the wrong place, "I'm sorry, I should probably introduce myself before asking questions like that." She seemed to hesitate for a second before taking a large step back away from Kenichi and bowing forward, "My name is Hyuuga Hinata."

She had managed to find out what Neji's mission had been via the message he'd received for it, and found it prudent to find him before her cousin did.

First finding that name coming up again in her life caused her blood to run cold, and then she figured that she had to reach Naruto somehow, to find him herself, and set out without informing Neji that she was doing so. Both he and her father would be quite upset with her for leaving home like that without any sort of escort, which was Neji's self-assigned task whenever he wasn't training or on missions.

Her intentions weren't malicious. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite.

"Hmm…" Kenichi thought to himself as the girl continued to bow, "Well Naruto-san is probably in the middle of a run, so who knows where he could be right now? He'll probably cut out and run off to training right after he finishes his run, but I can take you to where he's going to be later."

Hinata's face lit up at hearing the news, "That's wonderful!" So she did have a chance to reach him before it was too late.

"How do you know Naruto-san by the way?"

"…Well I knew him several years back you see, w-when we were both children."

That far back? If it was any longer than four years ago, Naruto was stuck on an island training his tail off to become a ninja at that point. So that had to mean by proxy… she was there too. And the only way she could have been there then and be standing there now was if…

Kenichi just stared at her owlishly, but Hinata just remained bowing until she figured it had dragged on for long enough and stood back up. There she remained, waiting patiently in front of Kenichi until the silence was beginning to unnerve her, "A-Ano, did I say something wrong?" She asked apprehensively.

'She's a ninja!' Kenichi thought to himself, trying to keep from freaking out while she was staring right at him, "N-No! No way! Ahahaha! Come on!" Kenichi said, throwing off his gardening apron and gloves to amble out of the room animatedly, "I-It's almost time to go, hahaha…"

Hinata just laughed nervously in her own right at the way Kenichi seemed to be reacting at apparently nothing, 'What an odd person.' But he wasn't lying. This much she could tell in her own way, "He apparently _is_ going to be seeing him later today.'

It still didn't explain why he was being so sketchy. Was she scary or something?

"Kenichi-kun!" Apparently the arrival of Miu helped him calm down more from what Hinata could feel as the lovely blonde came bounding into the greenhouse, waving hello and to get his attention, "I couldn't find Naruto-kun at the field or anywhere else so I guess he went to the dojo early. Oh." She said upon seeing that Kenichi had been talking with someone, "Hello. Who are you?"

"Miu-san." Kenichi interjected abruptly, "Ahaha… this is Hyuuga Hinata-san, someone that Naruto-san knew from _a long time ago_." He said, greatly stressing the end portion of his sentence, "You know, from back before we met him?"

Like 'ninja boot camp' days earlier.

Miu just stared at the mysterious new girl for several seconds before taking her hands into her own and shaking them, "That's great! I'm so glad that Naruto-kun had friends! He seemed kind of lonely before I actually started spending any real time with him."

Woosh, straight over her head.

"Well I'm looking for him if you know where to find him."

"Of course! Come with us, we'll show you." Miu led the new girl Hinata out by her hand while Kenichi banged his head on the glass wall of the greenhouse repeatedly, "Come on Kenichi-kun, it's time to go home!"

"…Uh huh…" He slowly slogged his way out and followed along. Where was Naruto to handle his own situations at a time like this? And why the hell was another ninja here?

Er, Hinata was a ninja, wasn't she?

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Ragnarok Hideout)

'Okay.' Naruto thought to himself as he hopped the fence to a deserted series of warehouses and old factories by the riverside, 'Gonna go alone. Got to go alone. Don't have the time to convince Shika to come with me.' And he didn't want to put Tenten back into any sort of uncomfortable situation with her old comrades that he didn't need her to be in.

This was the way to the HQ according to the address that Kisara gave him. Only the Fists knew the real HQ's destination, so at worst it would be one-on-eight, in which case he would run for dear life.

Ahem, not run away, tactically retreat. Running away was for cowards. _Tactically retreating_ on the other hand was for smart ninjas.

"Alright, I'm armed to the teeth. I know I can fight with these guys and win. And I need to do this if there's someone really out to kill me." Naruto reasoned with himself as he hopped the last fence to reach a particular warehouse, patting down his loaded up backpack, "I'm doing this for the info. Doin' it for the info. I've got to know, be-"

"-Because knowing is half the battle, right?"

Naruto turned a corner to the warehouse to find himself standing on a concrete jetty by the riverside, finding a young man in a white suit sitting on a crate by the building looking out at the water and the opposite shore, "Uh, Odin?"

The purple-haired young man just chuckled and took off his glasses to clean the lenses, "Since I know your name already, it's only fair to introduce myself. The First Fist of Ragnarok; Odin. But you can call me by my actual name if you want. Asamiya Ryuuto."

Naruto walked up closer and looked around at their surroundings before addressing Ryuuto, "So are we gonna talk for a bit and then do some kind of old-school sunset showdown duel?"

"Movie-style you mean." Ryuuto asked, chuckling a bit more at the prospect, "That actually does sound like a lot of fun doesn't it?"

Blue eyes blinked before a grin slowly spread across Naruto's face at the thought of such a happening, "…Yeah, it really does! Ooh, you know what my dream fight is? Fighting on top of a train. Epic. Tell me that wouldn't be totally cool."

"Mmm… it sounds cool in theory, but it doesn't seem that practical to me." Ryuuto said, shutting his eyes and stroking his chin in thought, "It's your ideal setting though, so don't let me step on your dreams. But I didn't ask you here today to simply shoot the breeze Uzumaki-san, and I didn't call you here to fight either."

Good.

Naruto looked around at his surroundings and found that this place didn't really have the symptoms of an ambush spot. There were plenty of spaces to escape to. Hell, if he was feeling fast enough he could swim for it.

So by that, Naruto was willing to hear him out, "Okay, cool." He said, leaning against an old forklift while keeping a watchful eye out, "I'm all ears."

"Where is Shirahama-san if you don't mind me asking? I really would have liked to see my old friend face-to-face again."

"Wait, you guys were friends?" There was a story there, he was sure of it, "Where the hell was I for this?"

"It was a long, long time ago. I'm sure you can understand how some things in the past can circle around to your present."

Brother did he ever. And speaking of which, Naruto had some burning questions that needed to be answered about his past coming back to bite him in the ass… or in this case kill him. There would likely be no ass-biting being done unless it was somehow meant to be fatal.

Ryuuto nodded and put his glasses back on, his eyes sharpening in seriousness when it came to the severity of the situation. He assumed that when a ninja said that they were going to kill someone, they weren't mincing words in the slightest, "As I'm sure you were told, there's a young man inquiring about you, and while I know that you are strong enough to take on Freya… this person could defeat her easily."

That was a bold statement. It was a _very_ bold statement.

"What do you mean?"

"If he were to decide that Ragnarok were his enemy, I would have to fight him myself if anyone were to survive."

"But whoever it is didn't did he? So why are you telling me any of this? Wouldn't killing me make it a lot easier?"

"While I don't mind if you're killed, I don't actively seek your death either. If you die in battle you die in battle and that's just the way it is." Ryuuto explained before sighing and shaking his head, "But Freya was rather insistent that a warning get out to you. She's Katsujinken you see, and if she is aware of a threat to someone's life she just can't let it slide. You should be thanking her first before anything."

Kisara said that too.

Naruto looked around again before giving a firm nod, "Right. Tell Kanam-, I mean Freya, tell her thanks for me in case I don't see her again."

"And why wouldn't you?"

"Because if a ninja says they're gonna kill me, they're not just saying that. They're really gonna go for it."

It was a leftover early lesson from the Homeland. Don't ever say that you're going to kill someone unless you're actually willing to do it, as death is only useful as a threat if you're actually willing to make good on it. Saying it too much without the power or the intention to follow through in the least makes it flat. The less you use death as a threat, the more meaningful it becomes.

Ragnarok punks seriously overused that threat to the point of nausea.

So he did know how to be serious. Ryuuto had been right in his assumption. Naruto was the real deal. A child raised from an impossibly young age to be a legitimate ninja, 'Just the way sensei used to talk about during training.' This was extremely interesting, "So what will you do?"

"Find him and deal with him." If someone wanted him dead, he'd just have to make sure that he got to them first wouldn't he?

"You'll kill him?"

And that was the million dollar question. Naruto had never killed anyone else before. He looked down at his own hands and really thought about it. He used so many weapons and tools that could have been deadly.

He wasn't Katsujinken. He never vowed to fight to preserve life. But he didn't believe that martial arts were only meant to destroy either. Still though, he wasn't of the belief that there was never a reason to kill anyone.

You could find a reason to kill _anybody_, you just didn't do it.

But there was a legitimate reason today to kill someone.

"If there's a guy out there that really wants me to die…" Naruto said to Ryuuto, "I'm not gonna lay down for him, and I'm not gonna kick his butt and let him run on home to try again later. If he's really here to kill me and I've got to kill him first to survive I will."

The matter of whether or not he could was something else entirely, and how his immediate company of Ryouzanpaku and his friends at school would react once he did so. Shikamaru and Tenten would get it and wouldn't even ask, but the others…

He'd have to burn that bridge if and when he came to it.

"You're going to need that mindset." Ryuuto insisted seriously, "Don't falter or lose that. He'll kill you with a touch you know. But you're an odd person. I've only had one conversation with you, but from what I've heard no one can tell if you're playing stand-up comedian or executioner. I guess we'll see soon enough if you survive. It's actually in Ragnarok's best interest if you come out victorious in this."

Naruto kept a watchful eye on him as the leader of Ragnarok walked over to Naruto and stopped right in front of him, "Since we've got a ceasefire going and everything, can you tell me anything that can help me _not_ get murdered?"

"I'll tell you what he looks like." The casually astute Ryuuto said, "Long brown hair tied low on his back, he's taller than you, longer limbs than you. His shirt was too loose to tell anything about his musculature so when it comes to physical strength I'm not certain, but from the way he moved I doubt he battles in a way that he'd need a lot of it. He was Japanese in descent, but his eyes were odd. Pale, without any features inside of them at all."

The dream from last night flashed right into Naruto's head and he stumbled hard against the forklift with a metal clang, "W-What? Are you serious?! You've got to be absolutely sure!"

The sudden outburst came as a surprise to Ryuuto who actually backed up in surprise, "I'm sure. You don't forget eyes like those even if you only get one look."

"…Yeah you really don't." Naruto said with a humorless laugh before repeating himself, "…You really don't."

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Elder's Residence)

If nothing else, having the mysterious girl that knew Naruto back in his ninja training days over for once lightened the load of Kenichi's evening training. For that he had to be a bit thankful to get something of a day off to entertain their guest.

"Do you want a refill Hinata-san?" Miu asked, going around and making sure that everyone was satisfied with food and drink as was her chore.

"I'm fine, thank you." Hinata answered, calmly sitting in seiza as she sipped carefully at the hot beverage, "Thank you for allowing me to come here, but Naruto-kun isn't coming today… is he?"

Off watching television with Apachai, Shigure reached up to the nodachi on her back and drummed her fingertips across the hilt of her weapon of choice, casting an aura that got the battle-hardened Muay Thai destroyer to scoot a few feet farther away from her, "Inconsiderate disciple." She said simply, "He can use a phone."

Pot meet kettle.

"Apa, Shigure, are you gonna kill Naruto?" Apachai asked her, fearing for the life of the kid he almost killed years ago by accident.

"He will wish I did… the next time we train."

Kenichi scratched his head from where he was sitting on the floor, "Takeda-senpai said that something spooked him. But that doesn't make any sense. Naruto doesn't get scared." He'd mouth off to master-level fighters that could kill him. It was one of his best and worst qualities.

"I just wanted to see him-." Hinata said before amending her words, "Well… meet him again. Even if I come across him I won't be able to see him."

"Err, what do you mean."

Hinata just stared at him strangely as if it were something that he should have picked up a long time ago, "Ano, Shirahama-san, I'm blind." Kenichi just stared at her with his mouth hanging open in abject shock, "Y-You didn't know?"

Kenichi slowly shook his head, "No!" He squawked indignantly, "How was I supposed to know?!"

All of Naruto's masters gleefully proceeded to chime in.

Ma Kensei: "How else do you think I've been able to get so many primo pictures of her free and clear?"

Sakaki Shio: "Really kid, you didn't see it? That's embarrassing."

Koetsuji Akisame: "It appears that I need to add onto my own training regimen for Kenichi if he's so blissfully unaware of his surroundings."

"I just didn't mean to make a big issue of it by bringing it up." Hinata defended, poking her index fingers together with her eyes averted to the ground, "I didn't mean to try to hide it or deceive anyone."

Seriously, she'd never let on for a moment that she couldn't see. She made it through school to the Gardening Club without any assistance, she was searching for Naruto all by herself, she walked all the way back with them to Ryouzanpaku without letting on at all. Hell, she even knew what Naruto looked like!

Wait, how could she know what Naruto looked like if she was blind? Did she know someone that could have identified Naruto for her or something like…? No it couldn't have been that either. When she had been describing his eyes it was as if she knew what it was like for her to look into them from firsthand experience.

"You haven't been blind for your whole life though have you?" Akisame asked, "How long?"

Even without being able to see, Hinata could feel the strong and calm glance of the Jujitsu master on her. Who could get used to that kind of presence being around them constantly? It wasn't just one, it was six of them.

"F-Four years." Hinata said, finding herself compelled to answer, "Four years and seven months." Her face was more or less pleading that no one asked her anymore than that. It was personal, and it was something that she wished to talk only with Naruto about, "What does it matter?"

It mattered because he could see.

Because he was astute enough at medicine that he knew from sight that the kind of blindness inflicted on her was the result of some sort of injury. She carried herself like a person that used to be some sort of combatant. Even though she didn't move like she was one currently, there was a certain readiness to her posture when standing and walking that a normal person wouldn't have had.

That reason was probably why Kenichi hadn't noticed that she couldn't see, because she didn't carry herself the way he'd have expected a blind person to. Her eyes could and would seem like they were focusing on things, so it was possible for people that didn't know what to look for to miss it.

"And why exactly do you want to find Naruto?"

Hinata looked down and her hands tightened into fists in her lap, "I want to meet him… because my cousin is coming to kill him." She said so quietly that some of them weren't sure if it was heard.

The whole room went silent with the exception of a quiet groan from Sakaki, who found it prudent to down the rest of his beer in one breath upon that shred of news being given, "So the thing in Chinatown wasn't just a one-off."

"Neji-niisan was given the mission." Hinata explained, tightly gripping her skirt, "And he seemed excited to take it. He'd always cursed Naruto-kun for what happened to me."

XxX

(With Naruto – Ragnarok Hideout)

"It's a Hyuuga." Naruto said to seemingly no one, but Ryuuto was still right there and listening, "Her family. It's gotta be. They're the only ones that have eyes like that."

Ryuuto just remained silent. There was something to this that his curiosity demanded that he see out. The other night, that ninja character seemed insistent on getting to Naruto, even past the point of wanting to fulfill a task assigned to him.

'A personal vendetta perhaps.' It would explain why Naruto appeared to be so haunted, "Did you wrong him?"

"I hurt someone in that family." Naruto said, eventually taking a seat on the edge of the jetty before laughing incredulously, "Why the hell am I telling you this? I met you all of ten minutes ago. I've never talked to anyone about this." Even Shikamaru despite the fact that he already knew. He had seen it firsthand.

"It's probably _because_ you met me only ten minutes ago." Ryuuto replied wryly, "Depending on what you say, someone could probably judge you. It's easier to deal with that from someone like me who is supposed to be an enemy. Who cares what I would think of you?"

While if his friends reacted badly to what he had to say, it would hurt him to the core.

"I'm aware of the fact that ninjas aren't supposed to be nice people." Ragnarok's Odin said, standing directly behind where Naruto was sitting, "All the smiling and crappy jokes in the world out of someone like you doesn't hide the fact that you were raised to do unpleasant things, no offense."

"Why would I take offense?"

"Most people would."

Naruto just shrugged, "Yeah, we can do pretty nasty things… but I actually hurt someone that didn't deserve it. I hurt her bad. And I don't know why."

What kind of an excuse was that, "Because you were angry?" Ryuuto tried to fill in the blank for Naruto.

"I can't remember why I was so mad."

"Because someone told you to?"

"It was a spar with rules."

"It was an accident?"

"No, I had to be pulled off of her before I stopped." Naruto said, looking at his fist before sticking it out in front of himself, "I came to, and I remember my arms moving to punch. And when I realized what I was hitting I froze long enough for Iruka-sensei to knock me out."

It was a kid's spar… by ninja standards, but still a mere spar that had gone way too far. He'd lost his shit, and he didn't know why. They'd run into each other, they started fighting, it racheted up a notch or two, and then it went hazy as his adrenaline picked up further and further from what it had already unnaturally been. He had beaten her so badly, and his voice had been ruined for the time being so he couldn't even talk.

"Did you show remorse?"

He didn't have a chance to apologize after his voice had returned. He was kept away from the other kids in the hospital for two weeks before he was given what Naruto now acknowledged as his official walking papers. In other words it was the all-important mission that he'd been so excited to carry out with Shikamaru.

So basically, no. He wanted to, but he really doubted that she was in any condition to hear him say he was sorry to make him feel better about himself anyway. An apology wouldn't take back what he did, even if he hadn't been in his right state of mind when he'd done it.

"We weren't really friends I don't think." Naruto recalled, flicking a nearby chunk of concrete into the water, "I didn't really have any friends back then. She was always really quiet, and we never talked, or at least she never talked to me but I thought she was nice." Thinking about the whole thing made him feel like garbage, "There was no way that she deserved what I did. And I didn't see her after that ever again."

As Naruto and Ryuuto conversed, just inside of the nearby warehouse there was someone else there listening. Freya had lingered behind in order to make sure that Ragnarok's exalted leader really did see to it that Naruto was properly warned.

When Odin had indeed begun speaking to Naruto about the ninja interloper from the night before she was prepared to leave as that was all she had wanted. But then through the warehouse window she saw his reaction, through the walls of the warehouse she'd heard the chilled timbre of his voice when talking about the current topic.

She didn't mean to eavesdrop. She had intended to only hear the needed part to confirm that Ryuuto would keep his word, but she just couldn't walk away now.

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Master's Quarter)

"It was a spar." Hinata said, dredging up the memory of the last time she was able to see, "Just a spar. Since we were getting older our training was getting more practical… and dangerous. Naruto-kun had been gone for a while, a long while, taken away somewhere, and when he came back he was paired with me to spar in the dark."

That did sound dangerous. It was also giving the masters ideas for Kenichi's future training to get him to level up faster, as he could see the wheels turning in their heads while Hinata spoke. Great, because active use of fire, whipping him for motivation, and utilizing bending, stretching, and crushing machines to build up his body just wasn't aggressive and difficult enough as it was.

"Did you do that sort of thing often?" Miu asked curiously, "Was there a purpose for putting you in pitch-darkness for training? There's no way anyone could ever see in that."

"It wasn't pitch-darkness." Hinata said, waving her hands in front of her defensively, "With practice you could see where you were going, and we'd been learning how to move around places with only moonlight and things like that all year long."

It had been a big part of that year's curriculum. The last tests were coming up and were supposed to be conducted in the dark that year. On that occasion it was just supposed to be a spar to help them start putting everything together.

Hinata placed her hand to her heart, "We fought. I was always a bit timid at fighting someone face-to-face, but I had a high aptitude for taijutsu because of my family specialty, so I was better than him. But because I couldn't see I hit him in the throat by accident." She could feel herself make contact with something that had more give to it than a boy's chest should have.

It hadn't been intentional. It was meant to be a short jab to the chest to knock him away, but her aim was high, it was dark, and Naruto had been moving. She knew she'd hurt him when right after she made contact she felt as if someone had misted her face with blood. She knew it had been blood and it had been from his mouth because she heard him choke.

The busty blonde teenage girl in Miu bopped her fist in her hand out of sudden understanding, "So you were the one that hurt Naruto-kun's throat and did what you did to his voice."

"Y-Yes, that was me I guess." Hinata continued, but feeling the gaze of everyone in the room on her made her feel extremely self-conscious, "But then something happened and Naruto-kun lost his temper. It was like he became a completely different person, and overwhelmed me." Brutally. As if the only reason for existing was to hit the target in front of him and keep hitting it, "I was comatose for a week afterwards, and I wasn't able to keep being a ninja anymore."

Akisame walked over to her and kneeled down directly in front of her, placing his index and middle fingers of both hands on both sides of her face right by her eyes. Hinata's face heated up at the gesture, the close proximity, and the serious look in his eyes as he seemed to be feeling for something.

Eventually he sighed and shook his head, "He did so much damage that he rendered you blind from physical trauma. Optical nerve damage." She could move her eyes and try to focus them, but she wasn't getting any sort of vision through them.

Hinata nodded, "It w-was a big mess from how I was told. There was a lot of blood. My blood. And they said he was like some kind of savage. I wasn't really awake for any of that part." She mumbled softly, "They sent me home as soon as I was well enough to make the trip."

Her father and older cousin were furious. It was harder to tell for her father, especially since he was away from home and remained on the island so much, but with Neji he carried a chip on his shoulder about Naruto until after he himself graduated and beyond, and he'd never even met him.

This mission was the greatest thing that could have happened from Neji's perspective.

XxX

(Nightfall – Town Streets)

A Hyuuga. That was who had come for him.

Well Ragnarok wasn't full of sociopaths-in-training the way that he and his friends had assumed initially. Even Odin seemed kind of decent. Sure, he probably only spoke up and helped him because Freya had requested it, but he still said something at all.

At least now Naruto could prepare. He didn't know how to prepare exactly, but being aware was infinitely better for his chances than not knowing anything at all. Taking as many roundabout backroutes as he could think of, much like how he was getting home right now, would be his best bet for not setting a pattern where he could be attacked easily.

Damn it, they probably taught counter-assassination courses on Homeland Island but those were probably advanced and he missed out on them after he got kicked out. All he could do for now was head home, run it by Shikamaru, see what he had to say, and see if he could fix it without anyone around him getting hurt.

Right, because that rundown made it sound like it was going to be easy.

After crossing a footbridge spanning a running waterway, Naruto stopped walking and shut his eyes with a sigh before turning back around. The eyes of the young man he saw staring directly at him might as well have replaced the moon itself, and he knew it.

So this was the guy.

Naruto would have asked him how he'd come across him so soon, or why he was just standing there staring instead of trying to attack him from behind while Naruto's back was turned, but it didn't matter.

At this point, Naruto just turned and stared. And there it was. Hyuuga eyes. The two simply remained at their places at opposite ends of the footbridge with only the sound of night insects, occasional dog barks, and running water in the air around them.

"My name is Hyuuga Neji." The apparently casual introduction had enough frost on it to chip off into a cup, "Tell me Uzumaki, do you remember that name? Hyuuga?"

'How does he fight?' Naruto thought to himself. Both of them weren't showing anything in regards to what their skills were to one another from their straight-up postures, 'I know what Ryuuto said, but there's got to be something else.'

"Would you like to know something interesting?" The Hyuuga boy suddenly said to Naruto as they both stood against one another, "People tend to think it's difficult to hold a grudge or hate someone or something if you don't know what it looks like. Admittedly they have a point. How could you possibly bring yourself to despise a person _so_ intensely… for _so_ long… when you have no earthly idea what they look like?"

Naruto just flexed his fingers and steadied his breathing to prepare for a fight.

"It wasn't hard for me." He continued, "After all, any anger that may have subsided while Hinata-sama was at home and I remained on the island came right back to me after I saw her greet me upon my graduation and my return home. But she couldn't see me. Couldn't see how I'd changed And she was _smiling_. And realized that I didn't have to know you or ever see you to hate your guts. All I have to do is look at her, and I can't help it. She's so lovely, and she'll never know how much because she can't see."

"She's blind?" Naruto asked in disbelief, his hands slipping from their balled fists, "I… blinded her?"

He didn't know that. He knew that he'd beaten the hell out of her before he snapped out of it and allowed Iruka to stop him. He knew that from the amount of blood he could remember on his hands and even his face that he'd gone way too far. He never knew he'd done something like taking her sight from her.

"She was forced to return home shortly after you were sent away like the wild animal you were that day." Neji said, coldly staring a hole through Naruto, "You broke the line of first-born direct Hyuuga descendents becoming ninja. And you took her light away. And she may be able to forgive you… but I can't. The entire world can't be saints Uzumaki, otherwise it wouldn't be such a commendable trait."

"So you found out I was here and you're coming for revenge for her?"

"No. Even if I knew where you were, I wouldn't have come. But the moment it was made my mission to exterminate you…" He left it hanging in the air, the way he wished he could leave Naruto, "Do you want to know why I'm doing this face-to-face? I wanted to see what you looked like for myself, alive, before I ended your life."

"I'm not gonna lay down for you." Naruto said, eyes hardened in determination, "Come and get it!"

His life was Neji's to take… if he was man enough to do so.

"It doesn't matter if you lay down and die or kick and fight with all of your might. It is your destiny to fall tonight, by my hand." Neji said with a smile, "Would you like to know another secret?"

Naruto was tired of secrets and took an action stance, left hand in a half-ram seal in front of his face, the second moving to his bag to grab some distance tools to see just what Neji was capable of from a safe testing distance, only for him to find Neji well within his personal space before he could grab something out to use.

"The secret is, you won't draw a single weapon for this entire battle!" Naruto lashed out with the quickest jabbing technique he could muster with his left hand, but Neji somehow shifted even further inside to Naruto's right side where his arm hadn't had time to descend yet, "Shouteiuchi (Palm Bottom Strike)!" With his hand turned upside down, Neji hit Naruto right behind the armpit with the thickest portion of his palm.

The hit blew Naruto over hard enough to knock him into the wooden railing of the bridge. Naruto coughed and saw red spill forth in specks from his lips from the fantastic aim of Neji's strike, 'What the fuck? That was like… that was like…'

It was so fast he probably wouldn't have noticed it if he didn't already have intimate knowledge of the movement. He had to know that certain method of stepping. It was the first fighting technique that Kenichi ever learned. He'd watched Miu teach Kenichi and spent days watching him repeat it, but even executed full speed from either of them, from Neji it made them seem like they'd been going in slow motion by comparison.

"Baguazhang is a marvelous martial art. So graceful and smooth. I can kill you without leaving a mark on your flesh." Neji said as Naruto pushed himself off of the railing, "I've found that I understand why the Hyuuga family specializes in Chinese Martial art instead of more casual avenues of Ninjutsu. Most people don't walk around with weapons in their hands unless they know they're to be in a fight, and even that has problems. The sound of a blade being drawn can alert an enemy. The gleam of steel in the light. So many issues. This is quieter."

"Why do you know that move?" Naruto asked, holding the area that he'd been hit in and receiving no relief. It was like Neji hadn't even hit him on the outside, injuring his insides instead, "I watched someone learn that move from a friend of mine, and she doesn't practice whatever the hell you just called it!"

"No martial art or style is invincible by itself. New techniques are always being developed, but many times when a discipline adds a technique it isn't really original. It's merely borrowed from another." Neji explained easily, "If you really knew my steps you would have reacted better. Or maybe you're just that much of a failure to know my moves and still fail to handle them."

Naruto growled angrily and reached into his pockets before hurling three shuriken at Neji. He sneered at such a pedestrian move only to get his ears rung and his eyes blurred by pops of firecrackers attached to them. Between the flickering bursts he noticed Naruto had moved from his line of sight and bent his body and knees ultra-low to avoid a diving kick from behind aimed at his neck, "Arashi Hakobi-te (Storm Bringer)!"

Damn it! He wasn't fast enough with his dad's move yet to take advantage of a short opening to finish it! He could see the slight bulge at the back of Neji's neck that marked a vertebrae and his target for the attack, and then Neji ducked it. What awareness.

"Oho!" Neji said, sounding impressed but in the most patronizing manner Naruto felt was humanly possible, "So you did manage to learn something after being kicked out aside from the pure basics? But that technique requires speed that you don't have to work on an enemy like me."

This was the first person his age that Naruto had fought seriously able to claim an actual edge in speed over him. Naruto started kicking his right leg out as if he were kickstarting an engine, "I hate this move."

The second Naruto moved his leg for said move, Neji went into his circular step in order to outmaneuver him, but found upon reaching the spot that Naruto used to be that the only thing they'd done was change places. This alarmed him, 'He doesn't know this. He seemed so surprised by me using it at the start of the battle, he couldn't possibly know how to use the circular step himself.'

And Naruto didn't, but it was something he came up with after watching nothing but Kenichi practice it for a week right before all of the Ragnarok trouble started. Based on the Kouho Haiho (Stepping Method), it was a variation of Naruto's feint chain of techniques. The Maruyoudou (Circle Feint).

But he wasn't very good at it yet since he had spliced it together himself from the intent of its parent technique and the principle of his own feints. It would rotate him around an intended conflict's center point and try to mask the move, but it wasn't down to a science.

If he had to do it against someone standing still it would only take them a few good views to probably figure out how his footwork covered his actual intent.

Neji had been moving to outmaneuver him however though, so Naruto's move merely wound up forcing them to switch position.

The proud Hyuuga glared at Naruto heatedly, "Are you mocking me? Do you really think you can fool me with such pitiful technique?"

"That wasn't your move jackass, that was mine!"

"And it failed, just like anything else you'll try against me will." Neji stated firmly, "You can't lay a bruise or a scratch on my skin, let alone win tonight. Every time you attack me I'll stop it cold and deal you more damage in turn. That is the only outcome that can befall a failure like you, even when they try to push past the limitations that are their fate to bind them."

"I'm not a failure! Tadayoudou (Straight Feint)!"

Neji watched Naruto's tricky movements before realizing that Naruto's path was not to attack him from the front. He ran right past him with their backs facing each other, 'What?'

"Sorasake Keru (Sky Tearing Kick)!" Throwing a backwards rotating kick while flipping in Neji's direction, Naruto landed on his feet right in front of Neji after the latter dodged the powerful kicking move. His knees didn't even have time to straighten back out before Neji did his thing and tried to circle walk position on him.

Letting instinct ride instead of tormenting his mind for technique to solve his conundrum, Naruto dove straight forward in a roll which annoyed Neji since it stopped him from landing a blow at his sides that would more than likely have killed him, "Grr."

Without any warning, Neji tried his swift outmaneuvering again and Naruto, knowing that he was going for such performed his own feint to counter it, only for his counter to be countered, "Gack!" Naruto sputtered upon finding Neji's palms slammed into both sides of him, front and back.

Blood spilled freely from Naruto's mouth as he could feel that something was very wrong with an organ, his lung from how hard it was to breathe and from where Neji's hands were on his chest and back, pressing his body.

"Hakke Hashirahakai (Eight Trigrams Pillar Destruction)." Neji said as he stood right at Naruto's right side, "I can see now why your circular feint worked. Even though I'm faster, you moved in the same direction as me; to the right. I couldn't tell at first you see, but it was a fifty-fifty gamble and this time I moved to the left, stopping you."

You could only flip the coin so many times before you got yourself burned on the return. Naruto had been dancing a dangerous number, and if he couldn't attack Neji it was only a matter of time until it came back around on him.

'Did… did I lose?' Naruto thought to himself as he could feel the strain on his lungs just to keep him breathing, 'I can't…'

Neji smirked at the look in Naruto's eye from his side view of him and let Naruto go with a weak shove. Naruto stumbled as if his legs had no stiffness to them, and fell against the wooden railing of the bridge involuntarily. But the bridge was old and had been creaking and groaning the whole time. Naruto's full body weight falling against it broke through and into the water below he fell, facedown as he was quickly carried away by the rapid flow of the waterway.

As the body was swiftly carried away, Neji just stared at him until he heard footsteps come up on the bridge as well. Eventually, Loki stood at his left side, a bit unnerved by watching someone he'd deemed to be strong be dispatched in such a manner, "Well, you got him… hehe…"

"Loki." Neji said in a stiff greeting, "I have to thank you… for keeping an eye on that hideout. I thought your gang had abandoned you after Ragnarok saw fit to kick you out."

"Tch." Loki sneered, kicking away another whole portion of the bridge's railing, "Odin is an idiot that thinks he's smart enough and strong enough to handle anyone else around him. My 'Shadows', and Number 20 are far too loyal to me. Number 20 especially."

He had the female spy hanging around the hideout because he wanted to set a trap of his own for the remaining Fists sometime soon, but when Number 20 reported that she'd seen Naruto speaking with Odin at the riverfront, Loki couldn't let an opportunity to get in with the dangerous new ninja in town pass.

With his nature of evil and propensity to piss others off, who knew when he'd need some built up goodwill with someone like that.

"And look at that." Loki said, gesturing to the water nervously, "You didn't even need your team."

Neji just stared and stared, not saying a word to acknowledge what the former Fourth Fist had just said until he turned around to leave, "…Find his body."

That caught Loki off-guard, "What?"

"We need to find his body. It's not a complex concept." Neji repeated smoothly as he walked past Loki, "He isn't dead until his body turns up."

Loki just stared at Neji strangely. With the way that his body had been moving so quickly in that waterway, _face down in the water_, if he didn't turn up in the outlet at the seaside blue and bloated, Naruto was one step below fucking immortal in his book.

"Okay." Loki said, trying to get all of this straight, "You collapsed a lung. I saw you do it. I know what that last front and back attack did. If that wouldn't kill him by itself… unless he's fucking Aquaman, he's gonna die in that water."

He stopped trying to reason when he saw a trail of blood drops on the ground following Neji's path as the ninja walked away.

No way. Loki was watching that entire time. Naruto never touched Neji. He was watching.

He didn't let it show with a marvelous poker face that would make a stone statue or bronze bust proud, but the victorious Hyuuga reached down to his right hip and winced slightly before pulling out a kunai that had been stabbed into him.

During Naruto's last diving roll he'd been able to arm himself with the small black knife without being noticed. Even with Neji's speed advantage and Naruto's own folly during the final act, he still wounded him.

"_The secret is, you won't draw a single weapon for this entire battle!"_

"_You can't lay a bruise or a scratch on my skin."_

He _had_ drawn a weapon. He'd drawn two and they'd been effective even if they hadn't resulted in Naruto's victory.

He _had_ managed to lay a scratch on Neji. He'd wounded him fairly significantly and it would need treating.

Neji tossed the kunai that had harmed him into the waterway and stared at his own blood that coated his hand before clenching a fist with it, 'I'll find you and finish you.' Neji thought confidently, "I can see right through you Uzumaki Naruto, and you won't hide from my eyes."

XxX

Further down the waterway, where it linked into a larger one, Naruto's body was carried into the larger waterway that would really have led his body out into the ocean at its end miles down the line.

It would have done that, if a single figure didn't dart across the water and pluck Naruto out before jumping up onto the high side road, safe and sound. All in two great, swift leaps.

The tall, white-haired, middle-aged man that Naruto had helped the other day against the local thugs held him by the back of his bag in one hand, his limp body bent forward and hanging off of the ground. Behind his odd sunglasses, the old vagrant shook his head at the soaking wet blond, "Man kid, you don't dick around do you? Even when you lose, you've gotta lose big."

Man, he never remembered Minato ever losing like that. If he'd stepped in against Neji it would have been like bringing a tactical nuke to a knife fight. And besides, if he did that, Naruto wouldn't learn anything. It was tough love. There was no tougher love than near-death experiences.

He even didn't know if Naruto could hear him or not, but he got a response in the form of a nasty cough that splattered water and blood on his wooden-sandal clad feet.

"…" The man just stared at Naruto, and then at his feet, and then back to Naruto. He finally shook his head and sighed exasperatedly before throwing the teenager up over his shoulder and carrying him off, "Yeah, I already tell. You're gonna start a whole bunch of fucking problems for me. But if I let Minato and Kushina's kid go and just get railroaded by the Kage Council and its _wonderful_ decisions they'd beat my ass in the next life."

So here he was again, about to do his best to guide the career of yet another punk orphan brat, just like he did with Namikaze Minato after Minato had graduated and become an official genin. Since Minato had no family, this man had been slated as his handler and contact with the Homeland, as was the custom.

After Minato had gone on to complete greatness and abject awesomeness due to his epic teachings, the man that taught him had basically gone into semi-retirement and wandered the world spreading his particular brand of remarkable through various avenues.

He stopped taking missions and constantly refused the call to return to the Homeland and take his final promotion from jounin to the Kage Council to the point where they'd stopped hounding him completely, right around the time of Minato's death.

From that point forward he really started to keep to himself and embrace the wanderer in him.

"Kid if I'd have known you were kicked out I would have tracked you down." The man said, "I came to this town to wait around for you to show because I was sick of waiting for a message with the official order of being your contact. I thought you were still in the system. You would have graduated just about three or four months ago… but they booted you back when you were twelve." That was the customary cutoff age.

Once again, Naruto did not answer to any of Jiraiya's explanations, because he was half-dead.

"Well there's a silver lining to every asswhooping kid, including this one. You've just got to look for it." The man said, a content smile on his face as he took to the rooftops to move somewhere secure faster, "Consider yourself lucky. If you don't die from this, you'll have me teaching you how to not suck! Doesn't that sound great?"

No response.

"Yeah, you're so excited you can't even speak. Don't worry kid, Jiraiya will work the same magic for you that he did for your old man."

"Blergh!"

"…You're going to wash the blood out of that when you wake up."

* * *

**Alright you guys, that's two. I couldn't help myself and went for two straight with this one. A double update of doom… doom… doom. I'm kind of sick in the head like that. I've been like that for a long time. **

**Well, I've wasted enough of your time. Go out there and be somebody.**

**Kenchi out.**


	14. By Any Means Neccesary

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I'm going to try and create a debilitating real-time submission hold of some sort within the next twelve months after a ton of research and I don't know what to call it. Should I be completely vain and name it after me, or be cute and give it some b.s. name that'll stick in the memory banks?

**Chapter 14: By Any Means Necessary**

* * *

The next day at school was strange.

There was a complete absence of one particular figure that was usually there rain or shine, sleet or snow. Whether he'd been beaten ragged by the masters of Ryouzanpaku the day before or not, Uzumaki Naruto was always at school. Today he was not.

That was a problem and had to be some sort of bad omen. Naruto was always there. He never missed unless he was too hurt to drag himself around town to get to class, and he was _never _that hurt. You could probably run Naruto over with a truck and he'd pop up the next morning complaining about his back or something.

But not today, because he wasn't there.

Hinata's words from the previous evening rang out in his mind, and several times during the course of the classes he turned to look over at his buddy's seat only to find Miu doing the same before the two of them looked up at each other. She always had a concerned look on her face, and Kenichi was quite certain that if he had a mirror on hand to see himself he'd find that the same went for him.

The bell rang for a particular class to draw to a close and bring about a short ten minute reprieve before the next was to begin and Kenichi wasted no time in pulling out his phone and calling Naruto's cell phone and actually getting an immediate response.

"_Hello?"_

Oh thank God. A feeling of relief washed over Kenichi's, and by proxy from seeing his expression Miu's, body, "Naruto-san, where are you? No one's seen you since yesterday. There's all this stuff from Takeda-senpai and this girl name-!"

"_I can't hear you."_

"All I was saying was that no one's seen you since yesterday and there's a person-!"

"_Sorry, but you're gonna have to speak up."_

"I said no one's seen-!"

"_HA! It's a machine! Leave a message alright? *beep*"_

"Damn it!" Kenichi hung up his phone and dropped his head onto the desk, "Straight to the answering machine… and why's his outgoing message so annoying?!" He felt Miu basically patting his head like he was a pet or something, but did nothing to remove the hand. Why would he? He had long since lost his shame, and it was nice, "…Aren't you going to say something about how you're sure he's just fine Miu-san?"

Miu's hand stopped patting Kenichi and she walked away a few steps, getting him to put his head up and look at her strangely, "Well, I can't say that this time. I really don't know."

Fighting some muscled punk that thought he was tough was one thing. Doing battle with fighters that were willing to face him straight up was another thing. Taking on someone willing to and fully capable of ending his life on a whim was something else entirely.

"Why does it have to be this way?" Kenichi asked aloud, though it was a mumble, "They have to kill him when they were the ones that sent him away?"

He didn't understand this entire ninja world concept. Why did it have to be so cutthroat?

"This is the dark underground of martial arts Kenichi-kun." Miu said, for once sounding completely serious in her method of speech, "It would come up eventually for you, but this is the way things are when you get past the surface." It was sooner than she wanted someone like him to discover how dark things could really be.

For people like Naruto, and people like Miu, they didn't get to start in the light where Kenichi did. They were in deep from the start, and that was why she understood just how dire things really were with Naruto's absence. The routine was a way of making sure that everything was alright. The fact that he wasn't there meant something terrible had happened.

Miu knew now why she was so prepared to befriend Naruto. Even back when they'd been fighting like cats and dogs against each other it had never been personal for a moment and she knew why now. What her grandfather said about telling things from a person's eyes was true. They were both so similar, and she could see it even if she didn't know it.

"After school." Kenichi said, completely grave in his tone, "After school… I don't want any more regrets about the things I've chosen to do, and I don't want to be the kind of person that only takes the martial arts half-seriously. If there are people out there really willing to get that serious, as a fellow disciple with Naruto-san it's my duty to take up his battles as well right?"

Miu was quite certain that he didn't know yet what he was getting into, but with so much conviction in his words she wasn't going to tell him no, "We'll definitely find out what happened to Naruto-kun together."

XxX

(With Naruto – Mountains Outside of Town)

"Wake up."

*SPLASH*

Naruto awoke with a start, sputtering and coughing as he sat up and flailed around. The last thing he remembered was getting caught in a compromisingly dangerous spot against that Hyuuga Neji guy.

Oh yeah, he blacked out. Damn it.

In the three seconds it took him to process that thought, another big bucket of water was thrown in his face and Naruto once again got the sensation of a river rapid blasting him in his mug. Naruto glared in the direction it came from and instantly felt an odd sense of intrigue poking at his memory as he saw some guy with three buckets, two of which he'd used already.

"Welcome back." To his credit, Jiraiya just stood back and let Naruto mull it all through in his head, 'Crap, this kid's slow on the uptake.'

Eventually Naruto's eyes lit up in remembrance, "Oi, you're that old man I met the other day. The one that those gangsters were about to beat up."

"Well I'm glad you remember me runt, but for the record those guys couldn't touch me if I was missing both of my arms and legs." Jiraiya said with a big grin as he turned around and tended to the nearby fire that was lighting and heating the cave, "You slept for about sixteen hours so I figured it was time to see if you were going to finish recovering anytime soon. How do you feel?"

Other than drenched? Naruto looked at himself and found that he was still wearing his school clothes from yesterday. His white button-up shirt still had red in it from his blood that had stained it, and it was open, something Naruto quickly amended by trying to button it back up.

Rolling his eyes at the boy's jerk-knee reaction, Jiraiya flicked him on the head, "I've already seen your big-ass scar obviously, so I don't know why you did that." Sheepishly, Naruto let his hands fall and just decided to take the damn thing off since it was soaked. He still had the undershirt though, "I watched you get your ass handed to you last night."

Naruto just stared at him before checking his surroundings. He was in a cave and had been set up on a bedroll by the nice old hobo… that had thrown water on him to awaken him. Still, he wasn't dead, but Neji had indeed beaten the brakes off of him.

"You were sleeping under that bridge too old man?" Naruto asked, rubbing his hand through his wet hair to fleck the drops of water aside, "Man, you've got to be like… the bridge master or something in town."

Jiraiya just deadpanned Naruto's way before stooping down and poking at his chest, getting him to cringe and swat his hand away, "Yeah, you're still hurt, but you collapsed a lung last night so even sitting up the way you are should be taking some effort." He should have been straining to breathe, and other things as well, but he wasn't, "You're a tough little bugger aren't you?"

"You saved me from drowning?" Naruto asked with a smile, "Wow, I totally owe you one. I can let you crash at my house for a few weeks if you want, but we've got to go back to town first." A sharp look came to Naruto's eye and he punched into his palm, "I've got to get back there and find that prick that did this."

"And then what?"

"What do you think? I'll beat his ass."

"Right, because that worked so well the first time." Jiraiya said, "Look, what do you think is going to make today any different from last night?" He asked, and Naruto opened his mouth before Jiraiya sharply cut him off, "Shut up. I'll tell you what'll be different. You'll lose faster, you won't luck out and fall into a river, and he'll actually finish the job this time."

Whether this man knew it or not, that barb cut deep. Losing was something that Naruto had learned how to endure, but bringing it up as bluntly as Jiraiya had didn't make it easy to shrug off, "You don't know anything old man." Naruto spat at him.

"Oh yeah?" Jiraiya said before walking to the mouth of the cave and standing right at the entrance, "Get past me. Get past me and I'll admit I was wrong and let you go home."

"What?"

"Try to hit me or get by me at all." Jiraiya took off his round-framed sunglasses and pocketed them, "Don't worry, I'll go easy on you." Naruto narrowed his eyes at Jiraiya and looked for his nearby bag, slinging it over his back before running right at him for a flying kick, only to get his leg swatted, spinning him upside down as Jiraiya grabbed him by the leg and held him up, "Nope." He threw Naruto away and watched him land on his feet in a crouch, "Try again junior."

Even though nothing happened, Naruto's body felt every aggressive movement he made. His chest felt like he was squeezing his own lung in a vice, but he wasn't done yet. In a very agile maneuver, Naruto jumped up straight at the ceiling, planting his feet right on it before using it as a springboard to launch full-speed at Jiraiya with a kick, "Arashi Hakobi-te (Storm Bringer)!"

Once again, Jiraiya caught Naruto's foot in his grasp as if he were catching a fastball, 'Heh. Kid needs more spring in his legs. When Minato threw that damn move he broke whatever he jumped off of in the process. Not even bringing up what he'd do to whatever he hit afterwards.' He was about to say something else to Naruto when the kid threw him a curve.

"Ni Ryuu (Double Dragons)!" Twisting his body at the ankle on the foot that Jiraiya had caught, Naruto threw a swift front kick straight at Jiraiya's head without touching the ground. He was kicking from the side that Jiraiya had already used the arm for. In other words he had no arm to safely block him again.

So Jiraiya just caught the toe of Naruto's shoe between his teeth. Naruto was too stunned at first to even say anything, but Jiraiya then started shaking him around angrily like a dog with a chew cloth until Naruto slipped out of his sneaker and flew back-first against the cave wall.

Jiraiya spit the shoe out and wiped his mouth with a cringe, but he felt that he'd gotten his point across, "Okay now-." He started to say until Naruto got up to try again, "Oh come on! I stopped you with my teeth that time! Get the point already dumbass!"

"You want me to quit?" Naruto asked with a dangerous glint in his eye as he pointed to the hint of the nasty scar across his chest that poked out around his right shoulder, "Give me another one of these and I'll think about it."

The two had something of a standoff, with Naruto staring seriously at Jiraiya and the latter sending it right back as sternly as he could. His stern older male expression was rather lacking though, because he hadn't really had much practice with it since his last student grew out of balking against it.

'This kid's got more piss and vinegar in him than Minato did back in the day though.' Jiraiya thought, still staring Naruto down until his expression broke and he burst out laughing, much to Naruto's surprise. But he still decided to make a break for it and ghost past Jiraiya only to catch an iron rod of a left arm to the jaw, "Ohohoho man… yeah, don't do that."

Naruto's eyes rolled around in his head after being stopped him with a clothesline that knocked him flat onto his back. Jiraiya then planted a foot on Naruto's chest to hold him in place, "Ah, you motherfucker."

"My name is Jiraiya."

"Motherfucker."

"…Jiraiya. Say it with me now brat. It rolls off of the tongue quite nicely and the ladies love it. Ji-rai-ya."

"Mo-ther-fucker! Get off and let me go home!"

Jiraiya sighed and removed his foot from Naruto who sat up and held his chest, coughing a bit. Some blood came up into his mouth, but he choked it back down instead of letting it show, "Come here and sit down with me." He started moving back over to the fire only to find Naruto pouting on the floor, "You didn't make a run for it."

"I didn't get past you, and you're not trying to kill me… I think." If Jiraiya wanted to kill Naruto or torment him, there would have been ample opportunity to do so while he'd been unconscious, "Meh… I'll hear you out old guy." With that he scooted over to the fire and started warming up, "…At least until I dry off."

On that note, Jiraiya threw another bucket of water at him, eliciting a silent wish of sudden death from Naruto, who didn't even lower his hands from trying to warm himself.

Tossing the bucket aside, Jiraiya shrugged shamelessly, "I had three buckets ready to wake you up with and I didn't want to waste the last one."

Why couldn't he find a respectable adult that treated him with the least bit of respect and common human decency? Was it really that difficult? It couldn't be. He must have just been attracting all of the worst ones. First Ryouzanpaku's masters and now the old hobo Jiraiya, "…All of my hate."

XxX

(Back in Town – Decrepit Bridge Shortcut)

After reporting to the others about his battle with Naruto, Neji set out with his team the next day to investigate the scene of his one-sided battle against Naruto. He was hiding a limp due to the stab he'd suffered, even from everyone else on the team, and was in a surly mood from it.

"Why did you allow him to escape?" Shino asked, looking at the broken railing that Naruto had fallen through, "I'm asking because you had him gravely wounded if what you told us is to be believed."

"I did not let him go." Neji replied, narrowing his eyes at Shino for the slight, "The railing gave way once he fell against it after my last strike."

Looking down into the water, Ino frowned and stood back up from her investigative crouch to turn and face their team leader, "Well you're sure he's not dead though? I mean if you tore his insides up and then threw him into the water, unless he's Aquaman or something I don't see how he gets out of this."

You weren't going to swim against the water moving at that pace. Yeah, maybe once it dumped you out into a main waterway, but Naruto had been unconscious when he'd gone in. Drowning seemed to be the most likely thing, but they'd been checking the waterway that this one fed into since they'd found out about the previous night's events.

Much to Neji's consternation they were unable to locate a body anywhere. Apparently the bad luck of the railing collapsing and throwing him into unswimmable waters could be counted as a good thing on this occasion, at least as far as Naruto went.

Kiba let out a whistle as he saw a little pool of blood on the ground, "Well he was definitely hit and trailing smoke." He commented with a shake of the head, "So you really gave him a shot at fighting instead of flat-out killing him?"

Neji didn't say anything about the blood to correct Kiba that it was his instead of Naruto's. It would have served no purpose because Naruto _was_ hurt and bleeding. It was just internally, "He had no chance. I just wanted to know what he looked like beforehand. That's all. I wanted to see the kind of person he was, and I have to say I might have been expecting too much from a washout."

"That Loki guy was pretty useful though, wasn't he?" Ino asked with a smile, "You're welcome for me finding him by the way. It certainly made this go a whole lot quicker." It took one day to catch their target in a position, "So let's see if we can do it again. He hasn't been to any hospitals in the area."

"There's no reason to risk it." Neji said as Ino's reporting sounded right, "There isn't much that a hospital can do for him with the injuries I gave him other than make him rest. He has to find somewhere safe to heal over time, and a hospital wouldn't be smart."

He didn't have Naruto pegged as very intelligent to begin with, but he figured that something like this would have been obvious enough, and apparently it was because Naruto was elsewhere. They didn't know where to find his home, so they had to do something else.

Loki was very forthcoming with information on the identity of Naruto's more prominent friends that he knew of, and they weren't difficult in the slightest to find. One of them would have to lead them to Naruto's place eventually, or drop some kind of hint, but it would have to be done in the daylight, and with Naruto out of the picture it was much easier to roam around his regular stomping grounds without fear of discovery.

"Ino, we'll leave this part up to you."

"Alrighty."

Naruto couldn't hide forever. Wherever he was, it was only a matter of time until he stuck up that blond mess of hair, and then it'd be taken out.

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

For once, instead of just getting one or two of them to humor him, Kenichi had the entire panel of his troop of masters before him, ready to address his questions. He'd returned with Miu, forgoing his afterschool club activity and opening the grievously heavy front gates to enter with a look on his face of a man on a mission.

When he asked all of them to talk with him he hadn't been expecting them to catch on to just how serious he was, but they did, and they all dropped what they were doing to hear him out.

"Why?" Kenichi asked, "Tell me why things have to be like this. I've tried to look at it from a different angle since I heard that there was someone after Naruto-san, but I just can't wrap my head around it. You keep talking about the dark side to martial arts, but no one ever explains anything about it to me. I don't care about how dangerous it is anymore. I said I wanted to be a martial artist that was strong enough to fight injustice when I saw it. Well sending a killer after Naruto after kicking him out of his own society is the most unjust thing I can think of right now!"

All of the masters looked at each other, but Kenichi stood strong. He had Miu right there behind him, standing supportively with him. Yeah, he didn't know what he was getting himself into, but did Naruto know what he was getting himself into when he first defended him from Tsukuba back when Kenichi was still learning the raw basics?

No, he didn't know that would call down Ragnarok to hound them for months. And he even blew his own secret for the sake of helping him. He was a good friend, and he was as noble as someone like him could be.

Hayato took the lead with the explanation, motioning Kenichi forward to stand. He dwarfed Kenichi thoroughly and the latter was noticeable unnerved at standing in front of the kindly, yet so intense old man, "Kenichi, you don't know anything about the society that Naruto comes from. Even I as an old man that has come across them in the past know very little."

"How can they explain what they did to him?"

"They don't have to."

"Why?"

"Because he had a choice."

"He was five!"

"And you're saying that when you were that young you didn't make a decision or do something that affects you to this day?" Hayato asked with a shake of his head and a belly laugh that came across as incredibly patronizing, "More often than not the things that will form who we are for the rest of our lives occurs before we ever reach the age of ten. You just have to look hard enough for what it is. Some people have turning points easier to find than other people's, such as Naruto's."

"He never… complains." Shigure said, staring out of the window of the common room. It was like she was waiting on him to come back out of the blue and start ranting about people talking about him behind his back, "He owns the choice he made… no matter how young he was when he made it."

While he was looking at the mistress of weaponry, Akisame walked over and rested his hands on Kenichi's shoulders, "You don't have to involve yourself in the issues of the ninja. I'm afraid that this will evolve into an affair like nothing of what you've expected from your enemies in Ragnarok."

Sakaki for once wasn't drinking. Instead he walked over to where Shigure was looking out of the window with Tochumaru on her shoulder doing the same. He groaned to himself and ran a hand through his hair before deciding to man up and take some semblance of responsibility.

"I could have said something." Sakaki admitted in regards to Naruto and the ninja issue, "I knew well enough that Yokohama wasn't going to be the end of it, but he was so adamant about keeping his mouth shut."

The way Asuma went right for him, even if Naruto tried to play it off, it was too coincidental to ignore. He knew that wickeder things were to come. But for some reason he was impressed. He was impressed with how Naruto didn't ask for help, or try to get others involved in a situation where they could get hurt.

It was stupid, but it was something that he respected as a man. His problems were his problems, and no one else's. So far that was exactly the case. He had disappeared, but no one else had gotten hurt or even knew the slightest about it other than the bare minimum.

Shigure didn't respond, and Sakaki kept talking, "I just…" He didn't know how to sound like he was apologizing! That wasn't his thing! He broke stuff with his fists and drank. That was his thing, "He's been on his own for as long as we've known him, ever since he was thinking that we were enemies."

"He could have said… something." Shigure said, her normally melancholy violet eyes still stared passively out the window, "Advice… assistance… those are the things a master is supposed to give a disciple. But he never asked or… even brought it up to me."

"The only reason I know about it is because I was there to begin with." Sakaki said, trying to console her in some manner. It was clear by now even if it didn't show in her body language that this was hurting her, "That's what he feels comfortable with. I don't think he even realized that asking for help was an option honestly."

Miu gasped and held a hand up to her mouth in shock, "But we're friends. He trains here with us… almost every single day. Kousaka-san is his sensei. He still doesn't trust us?" It was kind of hard for the lovely girl to take if that were indeed the case, "No one here wants to hurt him."

"Naruto-san is so stupid!"

All eyes turned back to Kenichi who was gritting his teeth in anger. There wasn't a hint of hesitance in his eyes, and there was a bit of righteous fury in them. It was entirely new from him. None of them had ever seen him react so passionately to something before.

"It doesn't matter if he doesn't trust us with whatever secrets he knows about the ninja culture, or if he thinks that not telling us anything is better for all of us, or whatever his reason is!" Kenichi shouted, "We're his friends! Miu-san and I are his friends!"

Seeing someone as usually passive as Kenichi find something that he was really willing to raise his voice about spoke volumes about the kind of person he was. Standing in a room full of scary people talking about real killers, and he was completely willing to stand up to them so that he could stand up for his friend. She really liked him when he was like that.

"That's right." Miu said with a positive smile, "That's why we can't let anything like this happen. We can't let anyone try to kill Naruto-kun just for being able to survive longer than he should have. It's not right."

Hayato lowered himself enough that he was able to look Kenichi in the eyes, "And you're sure about this?" He asked Kenichi, "Don't make the mistake of thinking that this is the kind of thing you can change your mind about once you decide to get involved. We've tried to keep you from getting in too deep before you were ready to make your decision on this."

"Well consider it made. Masters please, make me ready to deal with people like this." Kenichi said without a moment's hesitation, "Naruto-san and Miu-san lived this way their entire lives, _alone_." He looked back in her direction and lingered on his words for a moment before turning back to Hayato, "They're not by themselves anymore. I'm not going to let anyone kill anyone else if there's something I can do about it."

"And you really want to get involved with Naruto's business like this? Even though it could cost you your life?"

That last ultimatum didn't garner nearly as much pause from the multi-styled disciple of Ryouzanpaku.

"He'd do it for me."

And Kenichi didn't question that for an instant. Naruto wasn't the best guy in the world. He wasn't the smartest, he wasn't necessarily the most pleasant at all times of the day, but from the way he'd grown up he thought of dangerous situations that could cost him his life merely as annoyances on the same level of getting locked outside his house.

He put his body on the line for him when he never had to. The revelation of Naruto as a ninja occurred because of him. If it had never happened, then the only people that would have known about Naruto and his ninja background would have been the Ryouzanpaku populace, which wouldn't have been as dangerous.

The blond, bearded undefeated elder of the dojo just searched Kenichi's face for any sign of hesitance or doubt before grinning at him and putting his hand on his head, "Well then, I think it's about time _I_ give Ken-chan some training."

Every single person aside from Kenichi immediately took one massive step back away from the two of them no matter where they'd been standing or sitting prior, and Kenichi didn't know why. Sure, the Elder could be extremely intense from time to time, but from his experience he was perhaps the sanest person he could have gotten to train him.

Yes, because getting training from someone nicknamed 'The Invincible Superman' was always something that could be expected to be mellow.

Ignorance was bliss.

XxX

(With Naruto – Mountains Outside of Town)

"So let me get this straight." Naruto said, sitting by the fire and listening to what Jiraiya had to tell him with a dry look on his face, "You're a Konoha jounin that was the contact to my dad back when he was a genin."

"Yup." Jiraiya responded with a big, cheesy grin, "Trained him too. Don't forget that part."

"And you wanted to be my contact too for missions and stuff, but I got my ass kicked out without graduating so you're not even supposed to be talking to me."

"You're on a roll now."

"_But…_ you're _not_ gonna kill me because it's not your mission to, and nobody on that island can make you do a damn thing that you don't want to do anyway, so even if it was your mission they can just shove it."

"Glad to see you were listening."

"You're not gonna stop that Neji guy from coming at me again when he realizes I'm alive either because-."

"-Because direct treason aside, that'd be like pitting a preteen trainee against Ryouzanpak-…" Jiraiya trailed off from his joke after he realized that from the story Naruto had told him, this was exactly what had happened to him, "Oops. Bad analogy, but you get the point. I'm not into slaughtering kids, which the old school would dictate is a weakness."

Naruto frowned and remembered being scolded back when he was a little kid about thinking mercifully, "Why does it have to be a bad thing?"

Jiraiya reached out and gave Naruto a pat on the shoulder, "In my experience, being a ninja is a lot like being a pimp. And you can't have a conscience in the pimp game."

"Why?"

"Because-."

"No, I mean why is being a ninja like being a pimp? I don't get it."

Palming his face, Jiraiya just shook his head and spoke again, "Because saying you're a pimp sounds a lot better than saying you're a prostitute, which would be more accurate when speaking of the general lifestyle of a shinobi. Any more dumbass questions?"

"…Are those lines on your face tattoos?"

Jiraiya just stared at Naruto until the young man shrunk back into himself and let it be known that he wasn't going to run his mouth anymore for the time being. Seriously, this kid wasn't anything like Minato. He was definitely more like Kushina personality-wise, only more exasperating because at least when she started growing up and filling out Jiraiya could block her voice out and start picturing Kushina naked to get it out of mind.

Alright, enough remembering better times of thinking impure thoughts about Naruto's super-hot mother. It was time to get down to business.

"I saw you fight." Jiraiya said, getting Naruto's complete attention, "You're not as bad off as that beatdown would make someone think you were." Jiraiya said, pulling out a random bottle of booze that he started to sip at as he stared off to the cave wall.

That was surprising to Naruto. He hadn't hit Neji once, no matter what move he tried on him, and he wasn't able to draw a weapon of choice to turn the tide in his favor. What did Jiraiya see that made him think that his performance wasn't absolutely awful?

Just the thought of the fight made Naruto mad at himself at how weak he seemed.

Jiraiya could see the disappointment all over Naruto's face and took another drink before continuing, "You did things the wrong way." He said, to Naruto's confusion, "In reverse I mean. You learned techniques before learning the theory behind what you were using. I can see it in how you fight."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh if only your fine-ass mother was still around. She'd know how to dumb it down better."

Naruto didn't know what to be more pissed off about, the fact that Jiraiya openly referred to his mother as fine in such a crude manner or the fact that he'd insinuated that Naruto needed a lesson dumbed down for him.

Reaching into the fire, he grabbed a chunk of wood that he threw at Jiraiya only for it to be batted away as the hermit of a jounin seemed more concerned with thinking of a way to break things down for Naruto than the attempt to set him on fire.

Apparently, swatting flaming wood away was the spark he needed to think of a way to explain, "It's like you started playing a video game without reading the manual or doing the tutorial." From the way Naruto's eyes lit up, Jiraiya felt the need to pat him on the back, 'Damn I'm good.'

"I totally understood that." Naruto said, staring owlishly at Jiraiya, "That actually sounded smart."

"Yep. You learned the techniques well enough to do them your own way, but the way you're doing your moves isn't the problem." Jiraiya said, standing up and pacing around the fire now that he was on a teaching roll. He was definitely getting Naruto's respect from an analytical perspective so far, "The problem is, you don't know why you're doing your moves, or what the point of your moves are really supposed to be."

And like that he lost him, "Huh?" Naruto droned with a curious tilt of his head.

Jiraiya gestured for him to get up and follow him outside of the cave, something that Naruto was eager to do after being stuck in there ever since he'd woken up. The sun hitting his eyes was strange, mostly because he wasn't expecting it to be sundown.

They really were outside of town, though how far Naruto couldn't really tell. The forest wasn't really his forte, but the cave was in a beautiful spot. Right by the edge of a waterfall, scenic as all get out.

Once they were outside and Jiraiya had given Naruto enough time to properly stretch his legs, he went back into his explanation, "You know your moves. You know how to execute them, but you obviously taught yourself everything past the basics that you know because you've got no idea what your attacks were designed to do and what situation they're really for. Like the move in the cave where you jumped off of the ceiling, it's not a move that I know how to do, but I saw your dad do it. Do you know what the point of it is?"

"A stronger, faster flying kick?"

"No, it falls in line with the feints that you got from him too. You're supposed to incorporate it in with them, same with that cute little flippy, twisty kick thing you do. But you don't know how or with in particular what because you had to teach yourself somehow."

He had managed to learn the moves and he did. He had learned the how, but not the why.

The moves he saw Naruto use were Minato's, and the way Minato fought wasn't really something that Jiraiya ever picked up. It was a little too fast and all over the place for Jiraiya's tastes.

So he wasn't going to go there. He'd teach Naruto things of Minato's moves that he figured out enough to tell him about, but he couldn't teach him about things he didn't know. Minato had been a creative son of a bitch.

"Why are you even telling me all of this?" Naruto asked, "I mean you were my old man's contact, that doesn't mean you're responsible for me."

"Because I can do whatever the hell I want." Jiraiya said matter-of-factly, "I don't have to tell you why. That's part of me doing whatever the hell I want just in case you didn't know. You can either let me teach you what I want to help deal with that kid that kicked your tail, or you can shuffle on off to town and do it all over again the exact same way."

From how he wanted to hold him back from leaving the cave earlier, Naruto didn't think so, "Really?"

"I'm not gonna make you stay." Jiraiya said, turning his back to Naruto, "I just wanted to see you and talk to you, and I did that. Everything else is up to you. You're grown. You don't need me. If you really want to, go on."

As much as Jiraiya really did want to have a part in Naruto's life, and as much as he wanted to train him and teach him what he could, he wasn't going to chase the kid and be overbearing about it.

If going home and preparing in his own way for the next onslaught was what Naruto felt was best for him, Jiraiya wouldn't stop him. It did his heart good just to know that he was alive and alright.

But he didn't feel Naruto move from his place behind him, not even after five minutes given to the young ninja to deliberate with himself, "You're not going?"

"I don't know who you are aside from what you told me." Naruto said, clenching his fists tightly as he stared tensely at Jiraiya, "But you saved me. And a guy like you wouldn't need to trick me if you wanted to kill me or capture me or whatever."

Besides, there was just something about this weird guy that Naruto liked.

"If you're teachin'…" Naruto finished, shutting his eyes as he remembered the beatdown he'd taken from Neji as clear as day, "…If you're teachin', I'm listenin' I guess."

That was what he wanted to hear.

"Right then." Jiraiya said, turning around directly to face Naruto, "If you're not too beaten up to get down to business, let's get started shall we?" Naruto patted his own face to wake himself up and got into a stance to be ready for anything before Jiraiya chuckled, "You're eager. Let's see how long that lasts. You aren't ready to learn what I have to teach yet. I've got to toughen you up a bit first."

"How?"

"Get in the water."

Naruto's usually quiet logic portion of his brain kicked in as he looked at the running river and then at the big ass waterfall barely one hundred yards downstream, "But it'll suck me down the waterfall."

This didn't seem to concern Jiraiya in the slightest, "Yeah, be careful about that. But seriously, get your ass in the water or I'll throw you in. This is part of the training, and you already agreed to it."

Naruto had to wonder, just what did he get himself into?

XxX

(Back in Town – Outside of the Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

'Come on, go in.' Shikamaru thought to himself as he stared down the gigantic gates that had been haunting his dreams for the last four years, 'No one's going to punt you to the moon or chop you into little pieces. Those days are over.'

Naruto hadn't been back home in over 36 hours, he wasn't answering his phone, and no one had seen hide nor hair of him for that entire stretch of time, even Niijima who Shikamaru called in order to figure some things out.

The only other place that Shikamaru could think to check was the last place he ever wanted to go again.

"Ano, are you looking to go in too?"

So in thought he had been, Shikamaru felt a bit ashamed that he'd allowed someone to get close enough to him to say something like that, but when he turned he felt like he'd seen a ghost, "H-Hinata?"

Hinata took a step back upon hearing the person she'd come across outside of where she remembered Ryouzanpaku. He knew her name and seemed surprised to see her, so it wasn't someone that had actually been anticipating her arrival or anything, "W-Who are you?"

"Nara Shikamaru." Shikamaru said, still seriously confused at her presence, "You don't remember my face?" Damn it, she got hot over the last four years.

"I can't see your face." Her expression lit up at the sound of his name though, "But if you're here that means that Naruto-kun is here today, right?"

Shikamaru shook his head until he remembered that she said something about not being able to see him. How troublesome, "I don't know. I sure as hell hope so because I haven't seen him since yesterday morning."

"Oh no…" Hinata mumbled to herself, holding a hand against her heart, "Do you know that my cousin is here as well? To kill him?"

"What!?" Shikamaru shouted, starkly out of character for how he usually reacted to such things, "No, don't tell me it's because of the ninja that found Naruto in Yokohama." That _idiot_. He always knew that Naruto's messing around with Ryouzanpaku all friendly-like would get him into some serious trouble, "Did he-?"

"I don't know. I can't find him." Hinata admitted sadly, "I wanted to find Naruto-kun before… before something bad could happen. But if no one's seen or heard anything about him since yesterday…" There was reason to fear for the worst.

Hinata found Naruto's high school very quickly, all by herself, and she couldn't even see to verify the things around her. Neji could do something similar, and if form held true to how ninjas did things, he had a team with him, which would only make things worse.

Shikamaru didn't ask her another question before turning to the gate and kicking at it several times, hard enough for the sound to reverberate at least a full block away, "Open the door!" They would have barred it shut from the other side today of all days wouldn't they?

It took a few moments but the gates opened up with Akisame revealing himself as the one greeting them, "Oh, Hinata and Shikamaru both?" He asked, looking between the two of them, "Well come on in."

Hinata smiled and did just that, following his voice while Shikamaru hesitated for a moment, but with a tight clench of his fists he headed inside as well, "So damn troublesome."

This was hallowed ground, a place where ninja such as himself ought not to tread. While he couldn't feel the pending sense of death, he could feel the copious amounts of bodily harm inflicted on this property on a daily basis as well as the hard work that the people her constantly subjected themselves and others (Naruto and Kenichi) to.

That scared Shikamaru more than the pain or the thought of death really. The whole 'hard work' thing.

"What a pleasant peaceful place." Hinata commented as she walked in, getting Shikamaru to stare at her as if she were insane. Then again, she was basically new to the insanity that was Ryouzanpaku. She didn't know anything about what constituted training there… or handling of minors looking to complete a mission.

She also couldn't see the old gigantic bloodstained post covered in a bunch of misplaced projectile weapons that Akisame led them past. Probably from the last time that Naruto had been there to train. Was that a hatchet buried in the damn post or was he seeing things?

"You've come at a very good time." Akisame said casually despite knowing that Shikamaru was extremely wary of him. It was better to try and get him to trust them sooner rather than later, "Miu's almost finished dinner."

He didn't expect the extremely edgy Shikamaru to accept the subtle offer to sit and eat with them, but it was still worth offering.

Instead his attention was attracted to the sight of Kenichi training out in front of the dojo building, hitting pads with Apachai while practicing Muay Thai from the looks of the shorts he wore and the wrappings around his hands and feet, "Come on Kenichi, if the Elder is really gonna train you this might be Apachai's last chance to teach!"

"You mean until I'm done with his training right?" Kenichi asked, huffing in between practicing strikes according to where Apachai placed the pads for him to aim at, "…Right Apachai-sensei?"

No answer didn't bode well for his immediate future, but he had to worry about the present, as in ducking underneath a pad swinging over his head that would have probably taken it off or burned the hair off of his scalp had it touched.

This only resulted in him getting kicked in turn by Apachai; all a matter of 'gentle' chiding for a mistake in technique, "No Kenichi! No ducking straight forward in Muay Thai! Knees to the face are danger in that position!" He didn't have to kick him through the sliding doors of the dojo building for it though did he?

Shikamaru just watched all of this with an uncomfortably twitching brow, "He's going to get up from that right?"

Akisame just gave Shikamaru a pat on the shoulder, "Don't worry. It's not like Kenichi-kun has gone and gotten himself 'Apachai-ed'. He's dealt with this kind of thing before."

"Ugh." Kenichi crawled his way out of the hole that his body had just created after a few minutes of time given to him to recover, "Why do people keep saying that thing?" He asked sluggishly, "You keep saying that like it's a verb or something."

"Ano…" Hinata said, letting her voice be heard out of curiosity. Despite the fact that she couldn't see, she knew the sound and feel of someone getting hurled through something or of someone being hit, "What does that word mean? Apachai-ed?" It sounded strange for her to even try to say.

"It's basically a metaphor for being completely ruined in a one-sided battle that you have absolutely no chance of winning, to such an extent that you're left with a physical marking of some sort that will remain with you for the rest of your life." Akisame explained, "It doesn't count however unless the mere sight of bearing witness to what happened to you is enough to mentally traumatize people that it didn't even happen to."

Shikamaru then grabbed Hinata's shoulders and turned her in the general direction of the resident giant Muay Thai master, "Originally coined for what that guy did to Naruto the first time we met him."

Apachai spared a glance Shikamaru's way and noted the wary look that the young man was giving him after Akisame's rundown of what their expression of choice meant, "Apachai keeps telling Naruto he's sorry, apa…"

Kenichi realized that Apachai was doing better this time with holding back on him while he was training. He was only unconscious for three minutes this time instead of nearly dying from the hit.

As he got his head back on straight he realized that they had some company, "Oh… Nara-san. Hyuuga-san. What are you two doing here?"

"Looking for Naruto/Naruto-kun." Both Shikamaru and Hinata said simultaneously.

"You haven't seen him either?" Kenichi asked, shakily picking himself up off of the ground, standing with a wobble in his legs. Shikamaru and Tenten had been his last hope that something hadn't gone wrong with Naruto's whereabouts, "This really is bad. He didn't go home at all yesterday?"

"More like he never made it home." Shikamaru said, "I just heard about the fact that he's got ninjas after him."

Hinata frowned and averted her eyes away from the direction where she could hear them speaking, "Neji-niisan isn't after you. He doesn't even know that you're alive, or here. It's just Naruto-kun that he knows about."

Shikamaru felt his heart skip as his brain seemed to switch directions, and apparently it showed physically all over his face and due to his expression because all eyes were on him now.

"Well that's fortunate." Akisame said, but there was purpose to his words beyond what they meant on the surface, "It looks like there's no battle needed for you to fight my friend. No risk to your life."

Kenichi's eyes went wide and he immediately moved upon hearing such words from his teacher, "Sensei what are you-?"

The philosophical renaissance man merely stayed Kenichi with a raise of his hand while Shikamaru didn't seem to hear the band-aid wearing young fighter whatsoever. Whatever he was thinking, he was stuck alone with those thoughts.

"Yeah…" Shikamaru said to himself, walking out of the circle of conversation, running a hand down his face as he seemed to be at war with himself, "…Yeah."

Koetsuji Akisame just observed Shikamaru as closely as he could. For all of his intelligence he had more trouble perceiving the kind of person that Shikamaru was than any other youngster he had ever come across in his life.

It wasn't the fact that Shikamaru was a ninja that did it to him, because Naruto was a ninja and he could tell what Naruto was all about as a person. He was a straightforward and earnest person, and it didn't take a talent in reading people to figure that out.

That was more difficult with Shikamaru. He didn't know what made that kid tick. He didn't find the slightest bit of enthusiasm or a sense of urgency more times often than not, but there was something else there. It was like he had a sense of commitment that he was trying to bury beneath all of the nonchalance, but he could never keep it down and out of his way entirely.

It was why he still kept Naruto as a friend even after choosing to quit on their mission years ago. It was why he found himself getting involved in Naruto's business and battle alongside Naruto against Ragnarok when he had absolutely no logical reason to do so.

The boy was conflicted. More conflicted on what he wanted to do with himself than anyone else.

And right now he could only imagine the battle raging in his head at what he knew he was smart to do and what he knew he wanted to do.

Shikamaru just kept walking around looking at the ground, 'There's a play here. There's got to be a play where I can do both; get Naruto and keep Konoha from finding out I'm here too.'

Naruto wasn't dead, he was just M.I.A. He knew that for a fact. The very first thing he did when the two of them were dictated as partners was come up with several contingency plans in case one or the other wound up being put out of commission permanently, and none of those things had been set. If he was dead there was nothing else Shikamaru could do but lay low, but if Naruto was alive…

"You know…" Shikamaru said, his voice not really letting on to his internal turmoil despite his actions, "…Naruto and I had this thing. An agreement-, well I made him agree. It went, if one of us went down for whatever reason it was basically 'next-man-up'. As in if one of us dropped the other one kept going and didn't look back. That the one that walked away did what was best for him instead of en memoriam or whatever crap you want to call it."

No one said anything, but in Kenichi's mind he was burning to say something, 'Is he saying what I think he's saying?' He wanted so desperately to speak up, but Akisame's will was for him to shut his mouth and listen. This was not the time for him to try and sway Shikamaru one way or the other with his words the way he seemed to be able to do with others.

This wasn't the kind of decision he could try and force someone to make with sentimentality. This was Shikamaru's life, it wasn't Kenichi's place to try and make him do one thing or the other.

Shikamaru just stared at his hands and laughed humorlessly as the wire between his fingers shone in the moonlight, "I don't have to fight. I don't have to do anything. Every logical fiber in my being is telling me to make a run for it. To just tell Tenten and then take off, because even if we win it's never gonna stop after this. I know that. Running is the smart thing to do, and being smart is the only thing I've got going for me."

And with that he shoved his hands back into his pockets and just started leaving the premises.

Hinata was confused and didn't know why no one was saying anything to stop him. She had no right to. She hadn't seen him in years and didn't have the slightest place in his life. Kenichi on the other hand couldn't take it anymore.

He was willing to actually start a fight with Shikamaru because he was walking out on a friend. There had never been one second where Naruto hadn't considered Shikamaru his partner. The only person that he could really trust with who they were as shinobi. And he was walking away from it.

Kenichi clenched his fists and was set on running over and grabbing him to stop him, no matter what consequence occurred because of it until Shikamaru reached the gates and he heard the boy speak one more time.

"But I already ran out on that idiot once before when he could have needed me." The pineapple-haired boy said loud enough for everyone to hear, "As troublesome as it is, I can't run again Kami help me. I'd never be able to look myself in the mirror again."

Ryouzanpaku's one disciple that actually claimed that title felt a bit of hope in his heart at that declaration, "Does that mean you'll-?"

Shikamaru just threw his hands out from his pockets as he passed through the doors and turned partway around to smirk back at everyone else inside, "When we first met Tenten I said something that as a man I can't take back." He meant it to Tenten to put her mind at ease at the time, but it didn't make it any less true now, "I said that we're all we've got, and like it or not Naruto's the closest thing to a brother I'm ever going to have." He kept on walking and the doors somehow closed behind him without him even touching them.

So that was settled. Now there would definitely be some help from someone else that actually cared whether or not Naruto lived or died. He wasn't alone with his problems even if they were dangerous.

"And what about you young lady?" Akisame said to Hinata jolting her out of her reverie after hearing Shikamaru declare that he was going to do what he had to do for Naruto's sake, "You've already done a great service for us informing us that there was someone wishing to harm Naruto. There's no need to stand against your cousin."

Hinata bowed to the man, "Thank you. I just don't want to see either of them hurt; Neji-niisan or Naruto-kun. I want to stop it somehow." She didn't want to see them fight. She wanted to see Naruto one last time for some kind of closure to their incident, "But I don't have the strength to. Not directly. He would have been a superior ninja to me even if I had never had my accident, and his pure taijutsu is the best that the family has seen in some time."

"Then that merely means that it's time to train!" A massive hand set itself on top of Kenichi's head and he found himself lifted off of the ground and thrown over the shoulder of Hayato, "There's no time to waste if Kenichi is going to find himself in battle with an enemy that won't hesitate to kill him! Let's go!"

With that, The Elder of Ryouzanpaku leapt into the air with enough force to smash the ground and clear the wall surrounding the premises. He only used one mighty jump to do so, and Kenichi howled like he was about to fall to his death the entire way.

If you looked in the direction of the moon at that moment every few seconds you could see the outline of Hayato jumping up into sight of the moon and dropping back down, getting farther and farther away as he did.

Wow, he looked like he was flying he was jumping so hard. Was that where the 'Superman' part of his epithet came from?

Miu came outside from the main house of the dojo property wearing her apron and looking around as Kenichi's screams had just dissipated out of the air, "Did grandfather just take Kenichi-kun away to train him?" Everyone nodded in confirmation, "…It's a good thing I gave him a small bag of things to take with him before he ran out after dinner." It was at that point that she noticed Hinata, "Oh, Hinata-chan! Would you like to come in?"

Yes. Yes she did. Because she needed to sit down and catch her breath for a moment.

She couldn't see, but her other senses compensated for it in different ways such as allowing her to be sensitive to the inner and outer strength of others, and Fuurinji Hayato's ki and the mere feeling of his presence was extremely scary. Was that man even human?

XxX

(With Naruto – Mountains Outside of Town)

This was the most horrifying training Naruto had ever been subjected to, and that was saying something after the sadistic crap that Shigure put him through to make him improve his understanding of weaponry and evasiveness.

At least during those exercises he was allowed to breathe!

Jiraiya's training demands consisted of Naruto swimming to the bottom of the river and holding up a rock five times his own size over his head while running in the opposite direction of the current. He couldn't swim because the rock was too heavy and would hold him beneath it. And he _had_ to run because if he didn't keep his momentum going he'd get sucked from underneath the rock by the current where he would then risk being thrown over the edge of the nearby waterfall if he let himself lose too much ground.

How did he know how far he was supposed to go before the exercise was complete? That was simple. He knew where he was supposed to stop because Jiraiya was there underneath the water sitting cross-legged with his arms folded over his chest as he sternly observed Naruto's progress.

If one were to make a list of impossible things to try and do, this would have to be extremely high up on the list.

Every time he went up for air, he would lose ground due to the current pushing the rock back a ways before it came to rest on the riverbed.

Surfacing once more to fill his lungs with sweet oxygen, Naruto slapped the surface of the water before he kept swimming against the current, "This-!" He said before taking in a massive gulp of water and spitting it out, "-This is insane!"

It was the most taxing exercise he had ever done in his life. Every single muscle in his entire body screamed for him to stop and give up, but Jiraiya's orders had been to remain in the water until he said they were done. They had been at it for three hours, and Naruto had only made ten yards worth of ground from where he started due to the opponent against him in the water current.

Growling to himself, Naruto swam back down and underneath the space of the rock meant for him to get below and lift from to pick it back up and begin fighting nature once more, 'My legs can't move fast enough to gain any ground! It's like running on a treadmill!'

As he saw his assigned task through, his eyes were locked firmly on Jiraiya who hadn't moved an inch since the task had begun. How was he doing that? He was just sitting there. The water couldn't budge him one inch, and he hadn't gone up for air once in THREE HOURS.

It couldn't be.

Naruto had never seen one in person, but there were stories that were told all the time of the completely inhuman abilities of their ilk. The cream of their crop. The best of the best.

The strange middle-aged guy under the bridge and in the cave that threw water at him left Naruto with doubts, but any of that flew right out of the window as he could swear that he could feel the weight of Jiraiya's presence more than he could feel the rock he was holding up.

Was this man a Kage-level ninja?

As he contemplated this, the expression on Jiraiya's face shifted slightly and he pointed upwards before swimming up to the surface. Taking that as a sign to go up as well, Naruto lost the rock and did the same. By the time he got up there he found Jiraiya on the shore, motioning for him to come on over.

A sopping wet Naruto pulled himself out of the river and crawled on his hands and knees a good distance away from the water before collapsing on his belly, wheezing and hacking fluid from his mouth.

"Twelve yards." Jiraiya said, standing over Naruto as he seemed to be halfway to death's door again, "You made it twelve yards out of sixty-five." He informed him, plucking the boxer-clad Naruto up underneath one arm and hauling him back off to the cave again, "Tomorrow we'll reset and you'll start over."

The young outcast ninja felt like hammered hell. With every breath he took he could taste blood at the back of his throat, and now that the last speck of his adrenaline had worn off his vision was spotting out on him as he could see the ground move beneath him, "…Trying to kill me… crazy old…"

"You're going to hit 'the wall' every single day until you break through it and finish that exercise kid." Jiraiya told him as his voice echoed off of the walls of the cave, "Just think. You did this today with no food in your belly while you were supposed to be recovering from ruptured organs. Tomorrow you'll do better. And when you finally finish and prove your body is what I need it to be you'll learn some fun stuff."

In the single day or so that Jiraiya had known Naruto he had learned a few important things about him.

He was a tenacious person with a ton of guts. How else would that explain diving headfirst into an exercise such as the one he made him do. That damn training program could kill him easily if he made a mistake or his body simply gave out due to the stress. It was as much of a full-body workout that Jiraiya could force on him at this point in his development.

Every single facet of his physical conditioning was being pushed to the limit at once, and if Naruto hadn't come in with the fitness that he actually had as of tonight something would have failed in the middle of the exercise and that would have been al it would have taken for him to die.

The second thing that Jiraiya had learned was that this kid healed like a freak of nature. Nobody was supposed to be up and around twenty-four hours after rupturing organs, so either he'd recovered enough to be introduced to his new training or he was really good at ignoring injuries. That was not how it was supposed to work, either way, not for internal wounds. You didn't ignore that and you didn't sleep it off.

Naruto wasn't privy to any of this deep thinking in regards to his bodily capabilities just shut his eyes and started dozing off until he heard the sound of a door opening and a switch flipping on before artificial light. What the hell?

His eyes popped open in time to see an artificially lit hardwood floor before his body was dropped unceremoniously on it in a heap, but he didn't care about that, "Wh-What? You've got a house?"

And indeed Jiraiya did. It was an open room setup that looked… surprisingly modern. Like the kind of place Naruto would have if he had an apartment or something. Mustering enough energy to crane his neck behind him, Naruto looked outside and saw the cave… and that they were one turn around a corner from being where he'd woken up.

Jiraiya walked over and sat down on a couch, turning a TV on before looking over at Naruto who was giving him a look of intent. He already knew what he wanted to ask before the kid even said anything, "Yeah, I fooled you and let you wake up out in the cave at first so that when I actually took you into the house after training you'd be too hurt and tired to bitch about what I did and didn't have here."

For only consisting of one room, it wasn't really that small or that lacking in amenities.

Naruto coughed to clear his throat before kicking the door shut from the ground, "Do you have a phone?" He needed to call some people, let them know he wasn't dead. That whole thing; the usual stuff.

Jiraiya just scoffed and grinned, "Tch. Fuck no. What do I look like having a phone? I'm a sage kid. A man dedicated to personal betterment, teaching others, and denying myself unnecessary things. Now shut up and crawl into a bath to rest. I'll make something to eat in a bit. Right now I'm watching this."

Crawling a little farther into the house to see what Jiraiya was even watching, Naruto raised an eyebrow and blushed deeply when he saw what it was, "Is that-? Is that porn?"

"Maybe." Jiraiya said, not taking his eyes off of the TV, "You get a lot of channels when you've got a satellite connection. You know how many smut channels there are? I've found like 78 so far."

"…You're watching it like it's a regular show." Naruto said, clawing his way up into a chair to rest his weary muscles, "I'm kind of scared right now that I only see one room in this place." He was contemplating sleeping out in the cave if Jiraiya was one of those people that could, ahem, attend to himself with others around.

"Yeah. No, you should be troubled. I don't blame you." Jiraiya admitted without shame, "Want to know something fucked up? I'm almost completely desensitized to this by now. I scare myself sometimes. Don't worry though, only dealing with real-deal hot women in person gets me going anymore so you won't ever see me-."

"Come on man, I don't wanna hear any of that!"

"Oh I'm sorry junior. I thought you were past this already. You're like sixteen right?" Jiraiya asked belligerently before hitting a button on the remote and filling the house with loud sex sounds, "I forgot you were still probably a virgin. There. You want to hear that instead?"

Naruto let himself fall back out of the chair so he could claw his way to a bathtub, "Just change the channel already Ero-sennin!"

Hearing what Naruto called him actually got Jiraiya to stop paying attention to his smut long enough to actually look over at him and show that it had affected him, "Call me that again and you're gonna get the wakeup call from hell in the morning."

"Ero-sennin."

Yeah that brat was going to pay for that one. It was best to nip that little nickname in the bud before it stuck.

XxX

(The Next Day – Kouryo High School)

'Alright, this is so easy it's kind of pathetic.' Ino thought to herself as she dressed in a school uniform and walked through the halls for the sake of her assignment given to her by Neji. In order to find Naruto they had to go to the only other place where he could commonly be found; his school, 'I'd feel bad if this wasn't what my last two real missions entailed.'

If anyone looked her way, and a lot of boys did, all she had to do was flash them a pretty smile or look a little bashful at her surroundings. They would figure she was new and would let her ask them any question she wanted to. Give teenage guys a attractive face and body, look and act defenseless, and they'd give you anything they could to help you out.

And help they did. She was able to make a mental list of Naruto's friends, acquaintances, or people that he'd spent any sort of legitimate time around, reporting what she knew about them back to Neji, Shino, and Kiba.

No offense to those guys, but they never would have been able to pull anything like this off without having three-fourths of the school on their backs by the final bell. And sure, she already knew most of the people that she was being pointed to due to Loki's intel, but there wasn't anything quite like getting your own boots on the ground and doing the legwork yourself.

Because she didn't have a single class, as long as she kept moving and remained out of the scrutinizing glance of any faculty that would try to shoo her off to class or figure out certain things about her schedule, Ino had free reign of the school to check around anywhere she wanted. Upon finding out where the misfit group, gang, or organization… whatever the group that had latched onto Naruto's name as one of their aces wanted to call themselves, congregated, she made her way there quickly long before the bell of the last class let out for the day.

It was just a stupid physics lab.

The only thing she could find in there was a list of names to the Ragnarok members that had been defeated already and the name of the person that had defeated them, 'Hm, Shirahama Kenichi actually defeated their fifth strongest out of eight. He didn't seem very special to me, but maybe I'm wrong about that.'

Other than that, the only thing she could make out were a bunch of prototypes, probably failed prototypes, of some kind of team flag or something along those lines. Yeah, none of the people that actually took this farce seriously would know where Naruto would hide to heal.

"What are you doing here?"

Turning around, Ino was greeted with the sight of Tanimoto Natsu standing in the doorway with his bookbag slung over one shoulder idly, 'Let's see. How to handle this.' She thought to herself quickly, 'The pretty boy with a reputation as the most popular guy in school. He doesn't know me either so… ditzy exchange student? Yeah, do that.'

Despite having learned fluent Japanese that she'd been taught since before she ever began her training on Homeland Island, Ino took on a very thick German accent to her speech as she blushed and gave Tanimoto a bashful smile, "Ah, I am how you say-, lost?"

Once again, Ino knew who Tanimoto was as the current Fourth, formerly Sixth, Fist of Ragnarok. Loki was very forthcoming with every bit of information that the Konoha genin team would need on them if action against them became necessary, and she was able to fix a profile on what to do with these people if she came across them.

Tanimoto looked down on everyone else he deemed as weaker than him and always felt like the smartest man in the room when it came to how the majority of the high school treated him. All she had to do was play on that.

"You are Tanimoto Natsu-san, right?" Ino asked, smoothing a bang of her hair back behind her ear demurely, "People say many things about you." She walked over to him, trying to look somewhat nervous and hesitant, "Guten tag, I am new Herr Tanimoto."

"Well what are you doing here?" The handsome blond young man asked, giving his best heartbreaker of a smile to Ino, "There aren't any classes in here during this period, and if you hang around here too long some pretty rough customers come around here."

"Oh no!" Ino swooned in disappointment, "I did not get directions or map of school yet."

The first thing Tanimoto wanted to do was roll his eyes at this dumb girl. Just another one of the hanger-ons that the others in the school wanted to be in regards to him, only foreign. But he noticed something from how Ino had been walking. Her footsteps hadn't made a sound.

Her shoes were heeled and she hadn't made a smidge of noise.

Just like Uzumaki, and just like the person that had apparently infiltrated Ragnarok's headquarters two nights ago and dressed down Berserker in combat with one move. This girl, she could have been a ninja as well. Even if she wasn't he wasn't going to take the chance in dealing with her any longer than he had to.

"Yo Tanimoto-. Whoa! Who's that with you?"

Thank goodness. He was saved from having to make some sort of decision to blow his cover or something along those lines by the timely intrusion of Takeda Ikki and Ukita Kozo. Fantastic, "Hey! Good timing guys." He greeted with a bright smile their way, "This girl needs help, but I've got to get to Drama Club early to prepare for a practice. Could you guys show her where she needs to go in my place?"

'Oh he's good.' Ino admitted, keeping a grin off of her face, 'That's so good. Slick bastard.' She could respect that, and it wasn't like she needed him anyway. All of Ragnarok had already been deemed useless in helping them find Naruto's location, and the other two were noted acquaintances.

As Tanimoto backed his way out of the scene, Ukita and Takeda looked at each other and then back to Ino who was enough on her game to entrance the two of them merely from how she was standing and smiling at the two of them, "…Okay."

God she was hot. And Tanimoto was giving one of them a chance to get on her good side? As far as Ukita was concerned, he was their hero for the day. She was new, probably didn't know that they had reputations as delinquents, and would remember them as the guys that helped her out when she needed to learn her way around.

Before Ukita could throw his hat into the ring to woo the pretty new exchange student, Takeda tried to intercept, "I'll do the honor of showing this lovely lady around Ukita. You've got Judo Club to get ready for." Slick, movie star-looking bastard, he could get any girl he really wanted to aim for. Why this one?

"_You've _got Boxing Club to get ready for." Ukita rebutted, gritting his teeth while straining to keep a pleasant smile on his face, "Besides, I know this school like the back of my hand by now."

"Well I would let you do it, but I don't want the poor girl to be scared." Takeda said, patting his friend on the shoulder.

"I'm not scared of either of you, honest." Ino said with a giggle at their interaction. She tapped on her chin and pointed to Ukita, much to his surprise, "If I have a choice I pick you. You look like the kind of boy gangsters would leave alone, and you have safe eyes."

Ukita's face lit up and he nervously adjusted his sunglasses on his face while Takeda just stood aside stunned, "Ahem… well alright then." The judoka eventually said, walking over to Ino and offering her his arm to take, "Shall we go then?" Ino nodded and took him up on the gentlemanly gesture as they walked away, "Later." He said to Takeda, who had punched himself out of sight of the other two to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

A bruised jaw Takeda could only stare as they left. The white-haired boxer was befuddled, "In what world-? Since when do girls pick Ukita? I'm… I'm gonna go punch something now and figure this all out." He just kept staring even as a finger poked him on the shoulder. He brushed it off several times before he was finally forced to stumble forward from a swift kick to his backside, "Oi!"

"Pay attention when I' m trying to get your attention and that wouldn't have happened." An unapologetic Kisara said before looking down the hall at the girl that was with Ukita, "Who's that?"

"New hot girl." Takeda responded, rubbing his backside from the kick and glaring at Kisara, "What the hell do you want anyway?" She'd been hanging around a lot since Naruto had defeated her at the career fair. At first he figured it was some kind of 'know your enemy' deal, but she seemed to be less hostile.

She was still a bit rough around the edges, but she was much less of a bitch now.

"I haven't seen Uzumaki in two days, but he went to go see Odin the evening that we all ran into each other in the field." The hard-kicking redhead said informatively, "He isn't the type to try and run from that kind of thing. From what people say that he never misses a day of school, even when I broke his arm or after his run-in with Freya-chan."

"Naruto-kun wouldn't get picked off in one day." Takeda assured her, "Even if something happened, I'm sure he's fine. If he was really going to check out I'm pretty sure someone somewhere would know something about it."

That was a point that Kisara was willing to concede. Anyone that put Naruto to sleep for good would either have to do it before he knew about it or they'd have to make it messy because those would be your only two options.

Before Ukita and Ino made it out of sight, she scrutinized the blonde bimbo hanging off of her former underling's arm, 'How the hell is she not making a sound in those shoes?' She herself wore steel-toed boots, so she knew something about trying to walk in noisy footwear. That girl's heels should have been clacking against the floor step after step.

XxX

(Outside of the School)

"Well I guess the best way to show you around is from the outside in." Ukita said with a huge grin as he showed Ino the front of the school per her request for an impromptu tour, "Don't worry about a thin-." He felt a prick on the inside and outside of his arm that Ino was wrapped around and pulled away only to slump against the brick entrance of the school grounds, "What the-?"

"Ketamine overdose." Ino said, making sure she pulled him out of sight before he blacked out, "It acts fast doesn't it?" She asked while showing him small pricks on the rings that she wore on her hands, "Now come on big guy, no dropping here."

After making sure they were somewhere where they wouldn't be seen, Ino was about to let go of him until she felt him clutch tightly onto her arm. A sense of fright filled her as she felt her body get pulled in for a throw, but Ukita's body gave out before he could enact any kind of counterattack.

"Whew… that was close. But 'Art of the Valentine' works again." She said to herself in relief, "Getting close to someone that knew Judo though Ino? Not your safest plan."

"Almost got tossed by the Judo guy didn't you?" Kiba asked as he walked into the mouth of the alley followed by Shino, "If he'd beaten you before he passed out I would have never let you live that down by the way." Ino simply stuck her tongue out at him in response before rubbing at a deep red bruise on her arm from Ukita's attempt to throw her.

"It doesn't matter." Shino said as he and Kiba took an arm and lifted Ukita up to carry him away, "Ino, what did you find?"

"No sign of Naruto, and I don't think anyone knows where he is."

"So what is our next course of action in the meantime?"

"Well we have this guy, so why don't we try and see how much some of these people actually mean to him?"

"You mean lure him out with a hostage?" Kiba said with a scoff, "You really think a guy that can do what he did to Hinata cares about other people enough to stick his head out after what Neji did to him?"

Ino just walked up to Kiba and swatted him on the head, "You don't live somewhere for five years without making some kind of friends. Nobody can be alone and stay sane. If this guy won't work, this guy'll lure someone that will work. If _that_ person doesn't work, they'll lure _another_ person that'll work." Ino knew how people worked. It went with being good at infiltration, "Naruto's apparent network of friends has all kinds of people in it."

From what Loki had figured about Naruto after personal interaction and seeing what angered him along with other sorts of things that would set him off, Ino was able to make a profile of Naruto's personality and figure out a way to get to him. Even if no one else knew where he was, there was always a way to force him to show his hand.

Shino nodded in agreement, "Eventually if we can stay a step ahead long enough we will get someone that he would come out and fight for."

It wasn't the way that Kiba liked handling business personally, but everyone else seemed perfectly alright with doing things the indirect way. Neji had already hogged the fight that he wanted, and the kind of fight that he wanted; a battle with Naruto, straight-up and face-to-face. But as long as the mission was completed it didn't matter really.

Naruto wasn't going to run, and eventually he couldn't hide forever.

* * *

**And that's chapter. **

**Jiraiya's putting Naruto through evil boot camp, Hayato and the other masters have had Kenichi make up his mind to stand against the deadly side of martial arts even if it means making himself a future target, and Team Konoha Genin is beginning to make their second move to smoke out their soon-to-be victim.**

**S'go!**

**Kenchi out.**


	15. Square One

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Time to try and elbow the job market in the face. And I mean 'job' as in a straight-up serious career. Working in retail kills your soul, and I won't do it anymore. Never again.

I think every teenager should have at least one crappy job prior to graduating. If working the kind of job you're supposed to have at that age doesn't motivate you to go to college, do whatever's necessary to engage in a serious career, or chase your dream at all costs, I don't know what will.

**Chapter 15: Square One**

* * *

Ragnarok had shifted hideouts from the riverside hideout to a completely new location of an office building in the middle of town that had run out of money before construction for it had finished. There was nothing structurally wrong with the building at all, it was just that the interior was bare and it was missing detail.

It was perfectly useable as a place for the leading organization for young fighters in the area to gather, especially since it had a pretty decent amount of surrounding property to itself, allowing them privacy and keeping people from even accidentally stumbling upon them. For now it was as secure a place as was going to be available to them.

In the middle of one of the yet to be furnished rooms, Kugatachi Kaname, better known in most other circles as the Third Fist Freya, freely trained with her staff to keep her mind from wandering. She had taken to spending more time at the Ragnarok HQ than with her Valkyries, because they kept asking her about what her deal with Uzumaki Naruto was.

There was no 'deal'. He was a powerful enemy to Ragnarok, he was an idiot when it came to things that didn't involve fighting and enduring, and he was two years younger than her. She was about to go to university. He was in his first year of high school.

She just felt that it was wrong to know something about a plot to end someone's life and not do something about it. That was all.

But it had been days since anyone had even seen hide nor hair of him, and she would be a dirty liar if she didn't say that there was some level of concern there. She didn't want him dead by any means, she merely wanted to prove that she was his better in battle, as that was what Ragnarok was all about; gathering the best young martial artists that it could. Now more than ever since Loki had been kicked out.

Tch, it made her glad he was gone.

He'd had the largest force of followers, true, but they were all mostly thugs or tough guys that knew a little Karate but brawled more than anything else, and those were the ones that didn't use everyday delinquent weapons. Kisara's gang was rather sizeable as well, but she at least recruited as many actual fighters as she could, and after getting blasted around by the Kouryo High Wrecking Crew (test name), many of them had up and quit.

She stopped in her actions to find someone standing against the pillar of the room. Speak of the devil, "Kisara." Freya said as she faced her former subordinate with her usual aloof demeanor, "Is there something that you need?"

Hopefully it wasn't to chatter about her nonexistent relationship with Uzumaki Naruto. Honestly, you showed a worthy rival one moment of respect and mercy as a martial artist and people started assuming things.

Fortunately it didn't seem like Kisara was about to bring such a thing up, "Freya-chan, you were there when one of those ninja bastards threatened us and showed up Berserker right?" Showing up Berserker wasn't really the right word that Freya would use to describe it. It was more like the Second Fist's life had been in the hands of that boy.

That killing intent hadn't been for show. It wasn't meant to put up a front to deter any action against him. That white-eyed boy was merely letting them know that he would kill them without losing a wink of sleep, despite it not being his reason for confronting them.

Freya nodded to Kisara's question though. It was strange, because she hadn't asked any questions about it before when she'd been requested to inform Naruto of his predicament. So why now? It was just odd, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. It might be nothing." Kisara said, rubbing the thigh of her bared leg uncomfortably. She definitely wasn't used to asking things of others. It was a sign of weakness, but with how everything was turning topsy-turvy lately if things continued in this manner she'd probably have trouble telling which way was up, "It was just, I saw something strange in school today, but it's probably a coincidence. There was this girl, she didn't move like a fighter at all which had me thinking she was just some bimbo at first, but then I paid attention to her walk."

"What about it?"

"She didn't make a sound."

"…" Freya was not impressed by Kisara's apparent observation.

Blushing slightly in embarrassment, Kisara glared before lowering her beret down over her eyes, "She was wearing heels and hanging off of Ukita. You make noise in those kinds of shoes when you walk the way she was walking."

"It's intriguing, but I don't really see what the problem is."

"Uzumaki doesn't ever make noise with his footsteps either. Ever." Kisara pointed out, much to Freya's surprise because she had a serious point. Freya had fought him on a hardwood surface in his sneakers and he didn't even make a skid noise on the floor, "He runs and jumps all over the place and never makes a sound. Have you ever seen the bottom of the shoes he wears?"

She had indeed. There was a thin metal-tipped layer of treads in the center of the sole that ran straight front to back, apparently to help him keep his grip on surfaces without being obvious. Those should have made noise as well with every step he took.

Kisara couldn't get it out of her head, especially as a girl that wore a particular type of footwear herself. When she stepped in her steel-toed boots she made noise even when she tried her hardest not to. They walked normally and smoothly but didn't make a sound, almost like they were gliding as they moved.

Freya actually bit her lip as she too considered this, "The boy that came here that night, now that you mention it, no one heard him take a single step either." It had to be a ninja thing, which was what her red-haired former junior had been trying to allude to without making a concrete statement, "You said she was with Ukita? Your old underling?"

Oh, that wasn't good if the girl was really a ninja.

Just what was going on in their town?

XxX

(With Naruto – Mountains Outside of Town)

Naruto was lain out on a rock on the top of Jiraiya's cave that overlooked the nearby river and waterfall, breathing heavily and sunning himself like a lizard after getting out of the water after Jiraiya's training. He was seeing blotchy little circles, and it wasn't just because he was basically squinting into the sun.

Jiraiya had evilly plucked him up in the middle of his sleep and threw him straight into the river to resume his training with the underwater rock. Yes, he threw him. No dropping, _threw_ him, so that he intentionally hit the riverbed upon awakening. If he hadn't gotten his bearings immediately he would have either drowned, gotten knocked out right after awakening, or been stunned enough to allow his own body to be pulled by the current over the edge of the waterfall.

The old grizzled ninja then hopped in right behind him and oversaw Naruto's hellish training for three hours before letting him come back up and rest for a bit.

"Here we go." Jiraiya said as he made his way up to the topside of the cave with two bowls of food and a bottle of water for Naruto, "Eat, drink, and when you're done we'll keep going." He set the things down and stooped down by Naruto's side to poke at his quickly developing abs, "Hey… say something kid. I know you're not dead."

"Mmm…" Naruto groaned, rolling over just enough that he could start shoveling food into his mouth on his belly, not even bothering to use the chopsticks that Jiraiya had provided him in a package. In his defense he didn't get breakfast that morning, unless the dirt from the riverbed counted. There were probably some nutrients in that though.

Jiraiya just watched him eat until he turned to a direction that was farther in the forest, down in the deep valley miles away. A disgustingly strong aura that had been in the local area since last night, and he knew exactly who it was.

'Ugh. Stupid old man. I am not dealing with that guy right now.' Sparing a glance back at Naruto who was choking and trying to clear his throat as a result of his rampant pigging out, Jiraiya thumped him one good time on the back to shut him up, raising his eyebrows in interest when Naruto didn't flinch or recoil in pain the way he would have the day before, "Huh. You know, you're actually perfect for this kind of training."

Naruto turned his head Jiraiya's way and gave him a one-eyed squint as he grabbed the nearby bottle of water and began to drink. A method of questioning perhaps.

"I mean it." The white-haired hermit said, shaking his head as he continued making his point, "I mean, I can do whatever I want to get you stronger and you've got more of a chance of getting up from it than I think anyone else your age would. You do realize that the training I just made you do was never meant for you to last for as long as it did without breaks in between don't you?"

Cue stream of choked and spit-up water from the blond young ninja. He coughed a bit before shooting a glare Jiraiya's way, "W-What? Why the hell didn't you say that then?"

"Because you didn't stop. How the hell am I going to tell you underwater? Now if you'd actually surfaced for longer than enough time to just catch your breath…"

"Well then why'd we always stop after three hours?" Naruto asked.

"…That's as long as I can hold my breath for and meditate."

Naruto just stared at him before smacking his head off of the rock underneath him, 'Adults. What's with all of the adults I know? Can't I meet one that actually doesn't want to torture or kill me? Is that too much to ask?'

"But like I was saying-." Jiraiya was intentionally ignoring Naruto's attempt to scramble his own brains on the ground to continue with his point, "-It's either you, or your body. Or both of 'em. And that's an advantage. And we are going to abuse that advantage until I find your breaking point."

"Say what now?"

"You heard me. We're going to go find your glass ceiling so to speak. We'll kick up the underwater training again later when I think you'll get a bigger boon out of it, but for now tell me how you feel."

"Sore."

"I know that dumbass. I meant other than sore. Get up and move around a bit."

Naruto groaned but pushed himself up to do as Jiraiya asked only to blink right after getting up to his feet as he looked at his arms and legs while moving them around, "I feel loose. Loos_er_ anyway." And it wasn't just because he wasn't wearing his loaded down backpack that Jiraiya made him leave inside, "Hey, yeah. Actually, I feel great."

"Resistance training." Jiraiya said with a grin, "I didn't need to give you much of a push for you to start getting used to it with this weight. Next time I'll use a bigger rock."

He was going to make it harder? Naruto hadn't even managed to reach the full sixty-five yards yet, "I haven't even reached the end yet." He argued against increasing the difficulty of the exercise, "I can only make it thirty yards."

"Reaching the end isn't the point of the training." Jiraiya said, "It's the struggle of trying to get there with more and more working against you that helps you improve. And you can already get halfway there. Which means the only reason you couldn't get thirty last night was because you were still pretty bad off with your injury. You're definitely healing up since you improved so much after just one day."

…So this was like working rehab? Jiraiya was trying to gauge Naruto's health depending on what he could see he was capable of under brutal conditions. From yesterday and today he was estimating that Naruto healed extremely fast, but what did that all mean?

"I have a mission for you kid."

Jiraiya's statement was said with a big, wide grin, and it didn't really sit well with Naruto either. Such an expression never boded well for him. The man had a plan, and it would prove to be devious if his look was as transparent as it seemed to be, "…Okay?"

Getting up, Jiraiya pulled Naruto up to his feet as well before explaining, holding up three fingers as he did so, "I'll teach you how to perform three very special techniques, but in return I want to test you after I make sure you've got it. Deal?"

Naruto tilted his head curiously, "What's the test?"

"Ah-ah-ah. You don't get that knowledge until you accept." Rocking on his heels, the tall ninja averted his eyes from Naruto as he grinned all the while and attempted to sweeten the pot, "The techniques are real doozies... and I guarantee that while you might hate one you're gonna love it after it works for you. The other two you're definitely going to flip at." That sort of sales pitch would have to have worked.

And indeed, Naruto was intrigued. So he'd have to take a mystery test, but only _after_ receiving three techniques from a guy that could last three hours underwater without surfacing? Would that be worth it?

Yes. Yes it was. It might as well be payment for a job, which was what he was considering it to be.

"You're not my master." Naruto said as a portion of the deal, extending his hand for Jiraiya to shake, which he gleefully did, "I'm not gonna talk like you are."

If he didn't give that title to Shigure who he legitimately liked and knew decently enough by now he wasn't going to give it to this person, even if they did so happen to know his deceased parents.

"Of course not." Jiraiya replied without a care, "Ninjas don't have masters. Now come on. I've got a pretty good used defibrillator from an old friend of mine back in the cave that's great for teaching one of these techniques. I'll teach you the first jutsu now. It's a ninjutsu and it's the easiest to learn."

Even if it was only for a moment, that gave Naruto pause. What kind of ninjutsu needed a defibrillator in order to teach? Of course that soon gave way to an extremely useless question at this juncture.

"Is the defibrillator for like a focus punishment or something?"

"No. It's to bring you back when you die during the training."

XxX

(Back in Town – Naruto's House)

Shikamaru would have been remiss had he not informed Tenten of his admittedly dumb decision to prepare to fight a conflict with a team of Konoha assassins. He told her everything, told her that she didn't have to stay, that she could have made a run for it because they didn't know she was alive or even with them at all. That no one would drop her name in their presence if she chose to do so.

She didn't leave however, which was strange because right up until Shikamaru's decision-making moment set upon him by Akisame his own first instinct to the situation at hand was to pack up and leave… and that packing up would have only consisted of what he needed to take or get rid of to cover his own tracks.

But no, she remained, and so they trained. Training and planning. That was what his daily life consisted of. He still went to school, but he'd never really paid attention before so nowadays when he was just staring off into the distance in deep thought his teachers just assumed he was being a lazy-ass like always.

They didn't know that he was trying to think about any and everything he knew on the situation. They didn't see the wire in his fingers working as he used them to train right in class. Using items in the classroom and even students and teachers themselves to work on his craft.

Naruto figured that Shikamaru never trained because he never saw him doing it. Ha! As if. As much as he hated doing… anything… ever… for any reason at all. As much as he despised doing anything, Shikamaru had enough of a sense of self-preservation to know that he needed to keep his skills up somehow, and luckily his area of focus in combat was subtle enough that he was usually able to hide it from people that weren't combat trained.

Hours and hours of training during the dead period that others referred to as school.

Sure, it wasn't active, but then again Shikamaru had never been the most active, spryest, most athletic ninja to begin with.

Tenten was training her tail off however, trying to break through some sort of glass ceiling in as short a time span as she could muster before the need absolutely arose. She was working like this was the 11th hour and the world ended at midnight.

CRACK!

In the backyard, taking a nap after his whole day of working his ass off (by his standards) at school, Shikamaru opened his eyes to find Tenten throwing basically anything with an edge to it at bullseyes set up all over the yard. And by everywhere, they were really everywhere.

Several on the second story roof where you couldn't even see the centers of them, five in the one tree Naruto had in the back, hidden amongst the leaves and blocked by branches and whatnot, under a picnic table set up in the corner, blocked by benches and tabletop. All of that and more, and Tenten wasn't missing a beat.

"You know…" Shikamaru said, keeping his eyes closed despite the constant dull thunks of wood being pierced by metal, "When you said you could hit anything with anything from anywhere, I didn't think you literally meant it."

The praise was nice as she spared a smile for what she perceived as a complement, but it was sort of empty as well.

"I'm not as good as you think just because I can hit some targets." Tenten said, stopping and breaking her focus to speak to Shikamaru, "There's more to being a master markswoman than that. If it was, any yahoo that could throw darts in the bar downtown would be considered a high-level practitioner. It's really a lot of work."

"Ugh, the way you're talking about it makes it sound like it." Shikamaru said, yawning at the mere thought of doing something that would have taken dedication, "Like what actually?"

That was a fair enough question to the orphan kunoichi, and one that she was actually eager to answer. She was proud of the focus of combat that she'd chosen, "Well, more than you see goes into it. More that I'm not even close to being great at yet. There are dozens of techniques relating to actual throwing for different scenarios, and then you have to account for the actual mechanics of your throws. Range, trajectory, speed, number of blade rotations… I could sit here and talk about it all day but I don't want to bore you."

And that was another reason why Shikamaru was alright with having Tenten around. She pretty much had his outlook on things down pat pretty quickly. It took a while for most people to get him, but it didn't take Tenten very long at all to accept his eccentricities for what they were.

"I liked the shurikenjutsu aspect of our training more than I liked anything else about training on the Homeland." Tenten admitted with a bit of a smile, "Remember when the ninja parents were allowed on the island to see us? How they'd spend the time training their kids personally for a few days?"

Shikamaru sure did. It was how he got the basis of his wire training that he maintained whenever he felt like it from that point thereafter, "Unfortunately yes. Those were seriously the most troublesome days I…" And then he remembered that one of them never really had family, "…Ooh."

"Yeah." Tenten didn't begrudge him for the temporary lapse in memory though, "I never had that. But being a markswoman was something that I could teach myself. It's easy to know when you're getting better, and there's something that just feels good about hitting your target… and I guess I hyperfocused on it."

"At least you focused on anything at all." Sitting up from his nap, Shikamaru flexed and cracked his fingers to get ready for his own home training, "I just did enough to shut people up, and then I got bounced out for it so for what it's worth I actually _should_ be in this situation, no arguments about it."

But that was going to change in a hurry if he wanted to keep from being killed or having Naruto die instead. As loathe as he was to put physical effort behind anything, he'd done enough sitting and thinking about what they were probably going to do about their ninja problem. It was time to work to solve it.

Naruto _was not_ dead, so until the hit squad showed themselves it was best to sit back and anticipate a move first. As far as the bad guys knew, Shikamaru and Tenten didn't even exist. As long as their home was never attacked, things would be fine.

…Since when was this _their_ home? Shikamaru didn't remember making that leap in his mind anytime in the past. It was just a few weeks ago where he was thinking that this was just temporary until the whole Ragnarok business was over with. How things could change so quickly since Ragnarok wasn't even on the radar any longer.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Tenten tossed Shikamaru a small kunai that he could conceal in his palm as they both stopped what they were doing to go and see who was at the front door of their missing friend's home. Shikamaru went inside and through the house while Tenten quietly climbed up and ascended to the rooftop to see from above just in case.

You never could be too careful when there were assassins out to kill the person that actually owned the house.

Reaching the front door, Shikamaru investigated who was behind it before sighing and opening the door only to find Niijima throwing himself at his feet and clutching at one of his legs in a panic, "Proxy General Shikamaru, lend your general your practical combat intellect."

Shikamaru just stepped on his head to try and pry him off. This wasn't really what he needed today, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"My Operations Commander is missing, and now one of my higher ranking pawns-… err, underlings has been abducted! Ukita!"

The big Judo guy with the scar and the sunglasses? Oh hell. And just like that he found a picture of Ukita hanging upside-down by his legs in some dark setting shoved in his face via Niijima's phone.

Shikamaru palmed his forehead and moved the phone out of his face. This wasn't good. This was definitely not the time for this, "…I don't even know this guy that well." Sticking his neck out to fight for Naruto and/or Tenten was one thing, but he'd met Ukita once. And it hadn't really been anything more than an introduction, "I wouldn't even know how to find him."

"They're telling us where to go to get him."

And lo and behold, Shikamaru scrolled beneath the image to see that there were directions of where to bring one Uzumaki Naruto or else, and it had been a message sent to multiple contacts in Ukita's phone, including Naruto.

"I can't even reach Naruto! No one can! It's like his phone is off!" Niijima said. And that was a problem from his point of view, because no one's phone was ever really off for no good reason. Naruto hadn't been around for a while to begin with, thus the red flag was quite firmly up, and after some skulking around he'd found that there was apparently a group out for Naruto's blood.

So yes, he was concerned.

And now if threatening a friend of his wasn't enough, they sent the message to everyone that they knew Naruto was acquainted with to try and peer-pressure Naruto into showing himself if he was the type that would have decided to cop out. At the very least, they were anticipating that one of Ukita's numerous contacts that would possibly know of Naruto's whereabouts would trade it in for Ukita.

Actually, as a matter of fact…

"If you know where we live-" Shikamaru started to say, a careful eye cast on Niijima, "-Why wouldn't you have just traded the info on our house for the guy instead of coming straight to me?"

"…As if I'd risk one of my two lynchpin figures so callously, even for Ukita!" Niijima shouted as he stood back up. As a tactician he would never have logically traded off Uzumaki Naruto for Kozo Ukita. And then he felt the presence of someone dropping down behind him, as well as a sharp point at his back, "Ah… hah? So Naruto wouldn't happen to be laying low here would he? Because Kenichi isn't answering his phone either, and I can't think of anyone else that would know."

"Nope." Shikamaru said, not really caring that Tenten basically had Niijima with a knife to his spine, "He's really missing. But if he was dead they wouldn't have kidnapped Ukita would they?" If only they knew just who 'they' were.

Niijima hatched an idea shortly thereafter from that moment. A rather treacherous plan. But it would need some fine tuning to work correctly, and some serious firepower, "Hm, actually nevermind. Maybe we can get Naruto without actually needing to have Naruto be there?"

For some reason Shikamaru didn't like the sound of that. Not for his sake, because he wasn't going to be anywhere near the frontlines for that one, but for whomever Niijima managed to rope into going along with this.

The guy was decent with plans. Pretty good at them actually in all honesty. But sometimes stratagems were just not the best way to approach circumstances such as this. What separated being a good tactician from a great tactician was knowing when it was the time to play a situation straight and when to conspire to make your moves.

All in all, this was probably going to prove to be extremely troublesome.

XxX

(Black Valley - Nightfall)

What a miserable few days. The Elder hustled them out there as quickly as he could, and in a matter of hours he proceeded to drop Kenichi there and told him to just live.

What the hell did that mean, live? He was already living! And he didn't have any tools or anything! All he had was his karate gi that he'd been taken from Ryouzanpaku in. What exactly was expected of him out there?

But either way, he'd been surviving for two days already and it was rough going. There were berries and nuts, but there were also tons of poisonous plants, snakes, and other things that he would have much rather avoided if given the opportunity.

And every so often he'd feel something brushing behind him only to find absolutely nothing there upon turning around. No wind, no plants, no poisonous animals or insects, nothing at all.

"This sucks." Kenichi said to himself as he sat hunched over his pitiful little gathering of food for the day as his stomach berated him for his lack of survival skill, "I bet the Elder is feeling full and fat right now… all of that _actual_ food he was able to catch."

He couldn't fish with his bare hands like Hayato could! What was he, a bear slapping salmon out of a cold, fresh river?

For all of the talk about training, he had been told explicitly to refrain from training until Hayato told him that it was okay. How was he supposed to be training if he couldn't train? It was enough to drive him nuts.

And there was that damn brushing feeling about the back of his neck. It was killing him as he flinched forward instinctively as if he were dodging a bee.

It actually might have killed him, because he heard the sound of something cutting through the air and impacting off of a tree trunk to his right, 'What the heck?' He didn't see it, but he knew that something had flown past him. He wasn't that crazy to hallucinate sounds that specific. There was nothing stuck in the tree though, 'I'm not losing my mind out here, right?'

He wasn't _that_ hungry.

Getting up, he walked over to the tree and looked at it before digging through the bushes nearby where he saw three blunted… somethings that seemed like they'd been thrown through the air. These were definitely what hit the tree.

Warily, Kenichi backed away before he heard a snap and looked down to find that he'd tripped a branch or something that definitely hadn't been there before. There went that tickly feeling again, but this time he turned around in time to powerfully punch a chunk of rotted log to debris out of the air that had been tied to vines and suspended from the trees.

"Elder!" Kenichi yelled out as he whirled around trying to find out what direction something was going to come from next, "This isn't funny you know! I don't know what this is all about but-!" This time he turned around in time to catch the figure that he figured had been darting all over his pitiful excuse for a camp site all day and night long, "Oh no you don't!"

He lashed out with a low leg sweep to trip up the offending party only for the person to dive over it and roll through back onto their feet. Kenichi couldn't make out who they were, not only because it was basically pitch dark out there underneath the trees of the valley under a new moon, but because they had their entire body covered in some black clay or mud-like substance. Even their hair was discolored and slicked back with it.

This wasn't Hayato. He was too short, was built more like a cross-fitness athlete than a towering rippling-muscled superhero, had a pretty graphic scar going diagonally across his torso, and he lacked wrinkles, facial hair, and an intense aura of 'you're-gonna-die-if-you-don't-run' surrounding him.

Besides, if Hayato wanted to beat Kenichi up he wouldn't have tried to fuck with him from afar. He'd just go up to him and do it. No need for the runaround, "Who are you?"

The person put a hand up to their throat and opened their mouth, but a deep, gravelly voice echoed out from the surrounding area instead of from him in a guttural growl, _"You are not welcome in the domain that I survey. Consider your soul cursed, foolish human boyyyyy."_ The voice said as the figure's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

"You're kind of… puny for a demon aren't you? Just saying." Kenichi wondered curiously. If it weren't so dark he could see a slight shift in expression to one of slight nervousness from the savage standing across from him. Luckily he was saved by Kenichi's own fears, "Wait! You're here to steal my spirit! Evil creature!"

"_Ah… YES! YES! YOUR SOUL IS MINE SHIRAHAMA KENICHI!"_

"How do you know my name!?"

"_THE GUARDIAN OF THE MOUNTAINS KNOWS ALL!"_

"We're in a valley though… technically."

"…_Err, SHUT THE HELL UP!"_

There wasn't much time to speculate on what exactly was going on, as Kenichi's enemy hurled himself at him, but instead of an attack he ghosted past him and ran away. Kenichi turned and tried to keep up with him before he could get to a deep enough thicket to get away, but this guy was just so fast. He wasn't a damn demon though.

Eventually he slid into some brush that Kenichi barreled through a second later only to have lost him, "What is going on?" What if this guy was some kind of crazy mountain local? What if Hayato had brought Kenichi up there to pit him in life-or-death combat against savages? Against the tengu of the mountains!?

Rustling from above led to a rather large limb of a tree dropped onto Kenichi who dove out of the way in time to see the dark demon of the wood dive down from a sturdy branch with a powerful, driving kick that smashed the ground instead of Ryouzanpaku's hybrid martial arts disciple.

How frantic a pace was this person going to cut against him? It was taking everything Kenichi had to avoid taking a debilitating speedy punch to the face from either hand that the enemy was throwing them with. Every time Kenichi saw an opening to try and counter he'd jump out of range to try and get Kenichi to commit so that he could counter, but the brown-haired teen wasn't going to slip up and get frustrated to give him that chance.

That would lead to defeat, and defeat in this situation could and more than likely would lead to death.

Was that what Hayato was trying to teach him? First with the surviving with nothing and then the desperate fight against whoever this attacker was? That made sense! If a slew of killers were out to take Naruto's life he would need to be ready to handle people willing to kill him in battle to get through him.

He had to knuckle down and overcome this ordeal.

With Karate as his go-to style, Kenichi attempted several strong-handed punches only for his adversary to ghost from side to side and out of the way of each blow until he swung his leg forward in a roundhouse kick to knock one of Kenichi's punches away forcefully, following up with a 360 spin that led to another roundhouse scoring to the body.

Kenichi was able to temper his stance and endure the blow before trying to blast away at the dark aggressor's lower body with leg kicks. When he saw that he had his attention directed downward he feinted low, keeping his eyes to the ground to fool his foe, and kicked high. It missed by the hair on the mysterious one's chin however.

Someone here obviously knew full well what their body was capable of when it came to defense.

This was starting to feel kind of familiar actually. Something about the flow of this fight. There was a rhythm to it that Kenichi could claim he was used to… which was weird because he shouldn't have known the first thing about how this person fought.

As a test, Kenichi decided to go on the attack one more time. If this guy responded to his assault the way that the person in mind would have it would confirm his hypothesis.

With a smooth one-two motion using his hands in a circular motion, Kenichi brushed away two of the quicker punches from his enemy with enough leeway given to the motion to prevent their forward motion from slowing. Perfect for his next move. With one step forward he shoved his hands outward in a double-handed strike, "Soutenshu (Double Palm)!"

In order to prevent the attack from doing its full damage, the black-clad enemy actually jumped _into_ the attack, preventing Kenichi from extending his arms all the way into his thrust as he tried to wrap his right arm around the back of his head, grabbing his left elbow to pull his throat forward into the blade of his forearm that was pushing forward to try and choke him.

'A Box Choke!' Kenichi didn't allow him to wrap his legs around his body and finish the technique, instead choosing to fall back and put his Jujutsu training to use with a back roll that put him in top position. Before he could try to counter with his own grappling attack he was pushed away with the bare feet of the downed opponent, giving him the time to get back up and reset,

Before he could relax in the slightest, Kenichi had to lean his head out of the way of a small mud ball thrown at his eyes that would have blinded him temporarily upon contact.

'Oh… that was close!' He thought to himself, as he'd almost been a sitting duck for whatever would have followed afterwards.

And someone else knew it too. White teeth shone in the dark, grinning in a bit of a pleased, cocky manner before the expression quickly melted away and a stoic, stony demeanor replaced it.

Yes. There was no set order or pattern to the moves but these were distinctly familiar. Straight from the initial sneak attacks that started it all, and that grin from a moment ago, however short a time it lasted for. Things were coming together quicker and quicker. Then there was a matter of actually fighting this person head-on.

A sliding spin with a lightning-quick back elbow behind it. A tearing reverse-flipping kick that seemed to somewhat spit in the face of physics. Kenichi caught a kick, but before he could make a move to bring the fight into a grapple-fest he was forced to avoid a second kick from the other leg that then left the ground.

These were all a few of the signature spots that belonged to someone he knew. But that couldn't be. He was supposed to be missing? Some of the material covering his body had been smeared away off of his body, but more importantly out of his hair and off of his face. Deep yellow locks began spiking up and poking out from where it had been smeared away to make the previous attack on his sight.

"…Naruto-san?" Kenichi ventured to ask, actually putting the conflict on pause and getting a telltale tilt of the head from his enemy, "Is that you?"

Well it seemed like the jig was up. And Naruto was starting to get a bit uncomfortable fighting while covered in all of the crud that was caking his body in disguise. Kenichi had been way more perceptive than he'd perceived him to be back when he'd been trying to launch his sneak attacks on him, "Yeah?"

"Why are you naked?"

Naruto looked down at himself and shrugged vacantly, "I'm not. I'm wearing boxers. And the backpack."

That wasn't really a good enough answer as he was still not wearing anything in the middle of the goddamn woods, "…Why aren't you wearing more clothes?" And why the hell didn't Kenichi see the backpack any sooner? Fear maybe.

"Because I only have one set and you'd have figured out who I was if I didn't do something to disguise myself."

"And that something was to strip down to underwear and cover yourself in mud?"

"Yes. Yes it was." Naruto admitted, standing proudly with his arms crossed over his chest, "Scared the hell out of you didn't it?"

That begged the next question.

"What are you doing here?" Kenichi asked, walking up to Naruto and open-hand slapping him hard on the back with a great smack noise echoing out in the night air, "Everyone back home thinks you're really hurt or worse!"

"I am really hurt." Naruto said before testing his ribs and poking at where he figured his squishy organs would be past all of the skin and muscle, "…Well I _was_ really hurt. You know I almost got killed a few days ago?"

"This isn't funny! How could you keep something like people trying to kill you from us?" For once the even-tempered boy was at wit's end enough to actually shove Naruto back a few steps. As happy as he was to see his friend in decent health he had a lot to get off his chest, "Do you know how sad and scared Shigure-sensei is?"

Kenichi by now knew that with the way he'd been raised and lived, Naruto had a rather cavalier attitude when it came to the severity of his own mortality.

That didn't mean that he felt it was excusable that someone found their life to be worth so little that it was inconsequential enough to refer to in passing. Other people did find his physical wellbeing to be of a great measure of importance, even if he didn't understand that yet.

After being shoved, Naruto's first instinct was to buck up and restart the scrape with Kenichi, but when he brought up Shigure and how he had been the one to hurt her in some way he lost whatever fire had tempered in his belly to restart a fight.

As strange a woman as she was, Naruto didn't want to hurt her. She'd done more for him than any of the masters at Ryouzanpaku, and he'd have done next to anything she'd ask of him. Damn it, he'd admit that he was starting to grow attached to the crazy metal-toting lady.

When he found himself outside of town, he hadn't thought about how someone else like her might have felt about his absence. She fancied him her disciple and only God knew why she did, but she actually cared in her own funny little way of tormenting his body and spirit with training procedures.

"I would have called, but I lost my phone during the fight I lost. Ero-sennin doesn't exactly have a landline all the way out here in the boonies." Naruto said as a way of explaining as he guiltily rubbed the rest of the stuff that had been masking his features out of his hair before it hardened, "Look, I just… I can't drag people into my problems like that. It's not right."

"You put yourself into my problems when you didn't have to." Kenichi argued in return, "So too bad because we're in your problem. Miu-san and I, we're not going to let you fight killers alone." He gestured to the forest around them, "That's why the Elder brought me here, to train me. Why are you here?"

Naruto looked around and plopped down on the ground to take a seat, "I woke up on a mountain about two hours away from here after I got beat by some guy named Hyuuga Neji. And ever since I woke up I've been training before I go back home, so I don't get my ass kicked the way that I did the first time again."

And that was just the way it was as far as Naruto was concerned. He originally wanted to march back home immediately and expunge that loss from his record post haste, but Jiraiya had talked him into remaining behind. If he returned to town and it wasn't as under the radar as he'd have wanted it to be the same thing would just happen all over again.

Nothing would have changed from the first defeat other than the fact that he would know a little bit more about his enemy for the second go around, and he would have been injured coming in to begin with. Also, Neji would have already seen his moves from the first time as well, and he'd already stopped them cold once when he'd actually been healthy enough to put up a fight.

Kenichi had never actually seen Naruto lose before. He'd seen him in the aftermath of some fights that he hadn't exactly come out of as the clear-cut victor, like the first fight against Kisara in the crowd and against Freya, but he'd never outright heard Naruto say that he'd lost to anyone before other than Miu and the Ryouzanpaku masters.

He never admitted that someone around their age could handle him, even if he had to fight them with no preparation. So to hear Naruto consider someone dangerous enough that he had to prepare for him thoroughly to have even a chance at winning provided sort of a rattling feeling to Kenichi.

"This is a real ninja we're supposed to be dealing with here bud." Naruto said, still wiping the black stuff off of his face, "Unlike me, they didn't kick him out." And now he was admitting it to the face of someone that hadn't been roughly in the same boat as him such as Shikamaru or Tenten, "Kenichi I've got a confession to make man. I-."

"I already know." Kenichi said, sitting down back by his pile of foraged food to eat what he had for himself, "You're some kind of outcast. The Elder basically figured it out a long time ago but didn't tell anyone since you were just some kid back then."

"That son of a-." Naruto almost cursed before realizing that Hayato was more than likely somewhere well within earshot, "Well then I guess I can just say it. Neji's got all of the ninja training that I have and more. And he isn't alone."

Naruto was sure of it, even if Neji was the only one that he fought that night.

"How would you know?" Kenichi said, sighing pitifully after trying to crack a nut with his grip only to crush it into inedible debris. He couldn't even crack one with his bare hands before, and now he was too strong to do it now. One of the pros and cons of martial arts training it seemed.

"We're not you martial arts guys. The first option is supposed to be an unfair fight, even if we're stronger than our opponent." At least it should have been. Neji basically challenged Naruto to a straight-up fight and proceeded to trash him. He wasn't sure if he should have taken offense to that or not, "Anyway, if he was sent for me officially they sent others too to work with him. As backups in case I beat him, or just as support. I don't know."

What really got Naruto though, was how did he even find him to begin with? He was being careful on the way home from the riverside warehouse. More careful than usual even. And he was coming from a place he'd never gone to before, so there was no way Neji anticipated his route so easily.

His first thought after he'd originally found the time to ponder his situation had been that Ryuuto had set him up, but that wasn't that kind of guy's style. If Ryuuto wanted to crush him he would have just fought him during their meeting instead of warning him at all.

That kind of runaround wasn't really anyone in Ragnarok's style, except for maybe Loki, but word through the grapevine was that they kicked his ass to the curb after he'd tried to use members of the Eight Fists of Ragnarok to make his own power plays in the gang. Apparently he was a repeat offender in this case.

"Well, I failed since I didn't subdue you without being noticed." Naruto said as he stood back up and looked around despite no one else being around, "I guess I'll go back to the mountain and tell Ero-sennin." He really wanted to learn the rest of those techniques, so maybe he could broker some new conditions with Jiraiya.

And by learning the rest of the techniques he definitely didn't want to take a remedial course in the jutsu that Jiraiya needed the defibrillator to help teach.

Kenichi bid Naruto farewell and tried to stomach his pittance of food again before wondering something to himself as the latter left, muttering to himself about how much he hated fighting in the forest, "Who would let Naruto call them something like that?"

When he realized that Naruto was long gone, Kenichi idly realized that he should have asked Naruto if he knew anything about survival… or at least to stick around for a bit in case he did.

Huh... he didn't even bring up that he knew Hyuuga Neji's cousin Hinata who apparently knew Naruto as well. For sure he should have said something about that.

This stupid forest survival and all of his hunger was starting to wear on him. Now where were those damn nuts and berries he gathered?

XxX

From a place a few miles away, Hayato was simply taking a stroll through the woods, taking a break from his training of Kenichi. The boy had no real idea what was going on yet, but he was beginning to catch on. His reaction to Hayato constantly dashing past and taking impossibly fast shots at him from behind were actually coming along. He was beginning to pick up on them before he even made the move.

Kenichi had the instinct to learn perhaps the most important technique that he could be taught at this point and time. Just a little bit more and they could begin truly working on it.

But in the meantime he was simply walking at his own leisure.

"I know you're here Jiraiya." Hayato said to the open night forest, only getting the sounds of nocturnal animals in return for over a minute, "I see." The old blond powerhouse stroked his chin before a blazing look of determination came to his eyes, "WELL IF IT'S A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK YOU WANT YOUNG ONE, IT'S A GAME YOU'LL GET!"

Poised to blaze through whatever portion of the forest he had to like a bulldozer, he was gratefully stopped by the interjection of his intended 'target'.

"Oh hell no. Fuck that." Jiraiya proceeded to come out from where he seemed to have been one melding with the shadows with his hands up, "I actually like this place, and I'd rather not have you tear it up failing to look for me."

"And what makes you think I'd fail to find you?"

"Because I can actually suppress my ki to keep you from picking me out."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because the rock-headed brat of my old genin is affiliated with your dojo apparently, and we need to talk about it I guess." Jiraiya said, leaning against a tree as he took his sunglasses off, "He knows you lot, and he definitely didn't learn how to use those weapons he carries from Konoha. Even the way he throws shuriken, the style's not even close to the same. Someone's been helping him and I'd guess it's one of yours."

Who it was that knew how to use weapons Jiraiya didn't exactly know. The last time he'd been anywhere near Ryouzanpaku had been back in the day when there had been different members. Back years before Minato and Kushina died.

In all of that time they could have gotten someone else that knew how to use weapons to a master-level degree. It had been well around twelve or thirteen years.

Holding up a hand, Hayato swung it at a tree and cleaved straight through it, felling it to the ground just so that he could have a place to sit that wasn't on the ground for their conversation, "Very well. Have a seat and let's chat shall we?"

"Showoff." Jiraiya stated flatly as he went over to go sit down with a sigh, "You know that kid of yours you're training isn't bad for a greenhorn."

"Of course he isn't. He's Ryouzanpaku's Strongest Disciple after all."

"I'm pretty sure with the way you are he's your only disciple." Jiraiya jabbed in return before getting down to business, "Now… if you know, first I'd like you to tell me how Naruto's been living."

XxX

(Back in Town – Dilapidated Day Care)

An old residential neighborhood around the northern edge of town played host to the intended spot of meeting for Ukita's safety and wellbeing. The group of hostage-takers had if nothing else a penchant for picking isolated spots in clear sight. It was a place that most people could find easily enough, but wouldn't take a second glance at the route to if they were driving or walking past it.

There was just something creepy about an old, abandoned place where a day care used to be situated out of to boot. It was eerie.

Confidently, Niijima strode forward with Takeda walking alongside him, tensely taping his fists as the two of them led a small contingent of their group's more ordinary members as backup, including their flag holder… who still seemed to be testing out different banners for the group.

"Let's just get in there and get this done." Takeda said, finishing his prep work to protect his hands for what he felt would be a fight. With Ukita being his closest friend, this was something that he had taken more severely than any other person that had been contacted about the situation, "I should have had his back. This would never have happened if… if I'd been around to do something. Anything."

"It doesn't matter now Captain Takeda." An unassuming student with glasses said from the following pack of group members, "If anything's wrong with Vice-Captain Ukita we'll be here to tear them apart."

"Yeah…" Takeda said a bit unsurely at what he would call his 'backup' as he leaned over to Niijima, "Alright seriously, I let it slide before when I first met up with you guys, but what the hell are they doing here?" If Ukita was taken down by the lot that had kidnapped him, what were these others going to do?

Niijima just laughed and gestured back at his followers, "Never underestimate the power of numbers."

"Then why didn't you bring more?" Takeda deadpanned, cracking his knuckles. It wasn't really meant to be a threatening gesture more than a nervous habit, but it was perceived as such by the General of this ragtag assembly.

"Uh… because there's such a thing as too many numbers." Niijima replied as smoothly as he could, gaining more confidence back as he continued, "Yes. That's the way it is! Our Operations Commander Naruto can't perform at his absolute best if he feels he has to look out for the wellbeing of too many of his comrades from the shadows. It's the same reason that Kenichi isn't here tonight either! Too many powerful fighters spoils the dynamic!"

Which was complete bullshit. Since his little organization only really had Naruto, Kenichi, Takeda, Ukita, and sometimes Shikamaru and Tenten if they felt like it, he wanted as many strong folks around him as he could amass. Hell, the more the better. He was trying to enact his dream of ruling the world one day with the help of these people, and the best way for something like that to work was to insulate yourself with as much manpower as you could muster!

But the former two were outright missing in action and the latter two weren't really privy to being sucked into his ploys. Shikamaru was too smart to trust him without the proper conditions, and Tenten just scared him.

She carried lots of sharp things on her person and didn't seem to trust him even to the pitiful amount that Shikamaru did.

And that really only left Takeda as the sole active current member of his 'team'. But he had a plan, and it was a beautiful one.

They reached the front of the day care and before Takeda could reach for the door, Niijima stopped him, "Actually, I think it'd be better if you waited out here first."

"What?" The silver-haired boxer asked, "Why? If Ukita's in there-."

"If Ukita's inside, you'll wind up doing something dumb you stupid boxer." Niijima said, dodging a punch from the young man, "The way to handle this is with a delicate touch. Delicate. Not forceful."

"You mean like the snafu at the mall?"

"That? Hah, I knew that would happen the entire time, thus I prepared countermeasures. Don't worry about a thing. I've got this handled too."

Well… despite how hairy things got, everything did work out for the best when they had the grand run-in with Ragnarok at the mall. Niijima had history giving him the benefit of the doubt in this case.

"If things start getting out of hand we'll call you in right then and there." Niijima said, "How about that? But going in with you along with us could be a problem. Trust me."

God no. Even if he was going to listen to him here, it wasn't going to be that simple to get Takeda to trust a guy like him, "Alright. But if something goes wrong-."

"You'll be the first to know." Seriously, if the shit hit the fan did Takeda honestly think that Niijima _wouldn't_ call him in? He probably wouldn't ever hear a louder scream in his life than the one he'd hear right then.

With that, Takeda leaned against the side of the doorframe as Niijima led his entourage inside to get down to business. With their fearless General leading the pack, none of them felt the slightest bit out of their element despite the fact that none of them could fight even close to as well as Takeda could.

Knowing that you were walking into the den of a bear was much easier to stomach doing when you thought you were there with someone that knew how to handle it.

"Kamioka, Mizunuma, Matsui, look alive men." Niijima said, rallying his troops accordingly as they walked through the main hall of the facility, "It's time to show the true fortitude of the Shade Alliance!"

"Shade?"

"Yes, shade! Shirahama Kenichi, the man that represents the light of our school. Uzumaki Naruto, the warrior of the dark and the shadow that protects from afar! Both brought together by me, the man that walks both worlds! Yes, the Shade Alliance! A joint effort between the light and the dark to strive for justice!"

Once again, bullshit.

He came up with the name on the spot right then and there because he was tired of trying to think of a name that would incorporate himself, Kenichi, and Naruto into it convincingly. He was sick of them going unnamed, because this was the time for the group to be building prestige.

That, and Naruto who had begrudgingly accepted the merits of having people behind him due to Shikamaru's convincing, vehemently shot down any group title that had the word 'ninja', 'shinobi', 'assassin', his real name, or anything of the sort in it.

Niijima then noticed the bit of skepticism in regards to the name, "…Err, we'll work on it. That's not important right now though, so come on!"

With gusto he pushed his way through pair of double doors to enter the main playroom/waiting area of the day care. Like everywhere else in the place it was barely lit, but that didn't stop him from striding in for a moment, "Unhand our invaluable Vice Captain!"

On the floor a cell phone sat that began ringing loudly the moment the doors boomed open. How curious.

Niijima carefully crept over to the device and flipped it open without saying a word, only choosing to listen in, _"Hello 'Shade Alliance'." _A girl's voice said over the line, giggling ruefully, _"What a dumb name. Who's going to take that seriously?"_

"You took us seriously enough to kidnap one of my members. That's saying something."

"_Yeah, yeah, whatever. Where is our old classmate Naruto? We haven't seen him in ages."_

So Naruto knew these people? They really must have been ninjas after all then. But even so, "Where's Ukita? If there's anything wrong with him I can guarantee you that Naruto will just disappear right now."

"_Can't you see? He should be right in there with you."_

Everyone looked around until they tried to squint through the dark and saw a burly figure wriggling around while tied to a chair with a bag over his head. There were muffled grunts coming from him, most sounding like cursing, "Ukita!"

"_Now, now, I hope you don't think you'll be leaving without showing us Naruto. Just because he's right there in front of you, it doesn't mean things are free and clear for you to do something silly. My friend with me says that Naruto isn't with you, so things aren't looking too good for you."_

Niijima just chuckled and pulled out his own cell phone to dial a number, "Don't question me. Of course I brought him. Naruto was chomping at the bit to show up and deal with you." He then spoke into the receiver, "You're on."

From the windows of the room they were in, a figure broke in with spiky blond hair, goggles that reflected the slight light of the building, and clothing that went along the lines of things that Naruto would have been seen in. And then the figure spoke, "I'm so not in the mood for this Niijima!"

"Commander Naruto!" Kamioka, Mizunuma, and Matsui cheered as the ninja stood with his back to them, facing Ukita's direction.

"I know. You would rather keep protecting us from the shadows like you usually do, but comrades come first!" Niijima said, patting 'Naruto' on the shoulder.

It took a second but the figure responded again, "What?"

"Excellent." Niijima then turned his attention back to the phone with the girl's voice on the other end, "So now if you don't mind we'll be taking Uki-."

"_Wait one second." _ The voice speaking had changed to a rather calm, confident voice of a young man instead of the slightly airy girl's voice that had been there before, _"Uzumaki… tell me. When does a ninja strike?"_

"…" Everyone standing around was dead silent, and in the dark Niijima began to sweat as he looked at 'Naruto' nervously while they all waited for the answer, "HA! It's a machine! Leave a message alright? *beep*"

"…"

"_Yes. That's _certainly _Uzumaki you've got there."_ The voice said through the phone, increasingly condescendingly, _"Well you were given your chance to do this without consequences. Perhaps we need to start trying just a little bit harder to get our point across."_

A crash was heard from above and directly in front of Ukita, a large beam fell from the ceiling, fully engulfed in flames that began to set the entire room on fire.

"Damn it Siegfried why did you have to play that recording?" Niijima shouted at him, grabbing the yellow Naruto-style wig off of his head and throwing it to the ground to reveal the white locks of the immortal composer.

"I'm sorry my great demon king." Siegfried said with an apologetic bow, "There were only nine responses programmed into your device and none of them particularly sounded like anything that one would answer a code with."

Well now they had a new problem to deal with. Getting Ukita out of there before the building burned down when their way was barred by thick, towering flames that were spreading all over.

XxX

(Outside of the Day Care)

Takeda's nose started picking up the scent of something burning somewhere. It was close too. Very close. Running a short distance out from the building he saw smoke gathering in the air just above it and grit his teeth, "Damn it!"

Sprinting back to the thick doors he tried to shoulder-tackle his way through, but both of them stuck fast. No, he'd been barred from getting in? They couldn't even have gone that far in! It wasn't that big of a place for someone to sneak between him and between Niijima's entourage without anyone noticing.

He did notice however, the sound of metal scraping against metal.

Turning around, he saw a guy in a leather jacket with red tattoos on his face and a way too energetic look in his eyes. He seemed like a punk, but the weapon on his hand wasn't something that a delinquent would carry around.

It was a short claw on his hand with spikes on the palm in front of every finger as well, meant to assist with climbing, but they were probably just as wicked a part of the weapon as the actual death-dealing portion of it.

"Heh." Kiba said, brandishing his claw threateningly, "Uzumaki's gone, Shirahama's gone, and your friend wasn't that tough or smart. So I guess it's down to you."

He was glad that this had happened. The plan they'd initiated had never been done with the expectation that they'd actually goad Naruto out on the first try. So at least he could take his own pound of flesh from someone instead of sitting around bored the whole time the way he had been.

Takeda brandished his fists angrily as he could feel bloodlust radiating from his strange-looking adversary, "Tch. So you're one of those kidnapping chumps." A fight was the first thing he wanted to do, but the day care was on fire. He could smell it. And the others were still inside, "This isn't a good time."

"It is for me."

A swipe from the claw at Takeda came from Kiba without much more warning, but the footwork of the boxer allowed him to move out to the side of the strike where he retaliated with a flashingly quick left punch, "Left Straight!"

Kiba planted his left clawless hand on the ground and twisted his body upward to kick Takeda's punch away before quickly cartwheeling out of striking range. Takeda was completely caught off-guard. What kind of move was that supposed to be? He'd seen more than his fair share of martial arts already, but he'd never seen one like that.

'He's got no clue what's up.' Kiba thought to himself as he stood at the ready again, 'My taijutsu focus is the Shako Ken (Claw Fist) and Tobi Geri (Leaping Kicks). He can box all he wants. He's got nothing for this.'

'Gotta finish this quick.' Takeda thought to himself, eyes flickering over to the building before he pressed forward to make his move. He had to be careful though. His enemy's deadly claw could easily cut him and effectively take him out of the fight.

Showing off his high hand-speed, Takeda moved in and let loose a barrage of textbook punches at Kiba that the young ninja avoided while trying to retaliate with acrobatics. The sticking point of the way Kiba fought was to avoid Takeda's punches before choosing a spot to frantically jump in with long, quick kicks. All just a distraction to let him lash out with that nasty claw the instant he landed.

The way he chose to jump and throw kicks was similar to Naruto's approach in regards to how he usually kicked, however Naruto's kicks were smoother in Takeda's opinion. But Naruto also didn't have a lethal claw backing up every move he made to dissuade badly timed counterattacks. Something had to change or they'd just defensively stalemate all night long.

Taking a chance during one of Kiba's leaping kicks, Takeda stepped forward into it and blocked, stalling him in the air long enough for him to swing at Kiba's legs with a ringing hook, "Ha!" Able to hit his lower body rather cleanly while in midair, Takeda managed to flip the aerial Kiba upside-down, dropping him down on his head, 'That'll leave a mark!'

And it did. But not on Kiba. It left one on him.

Instead of landing on his head, Kiba curled his body into a forward bend during his upside-down fall and used his upper shoulders and his hands to brace his landing. In the next motion he pushed himself back up into the air and swung his legs forward from his bent position to kick Takeda in the face on the way up.

"It's not that easy to knock a ninja off-balance!" Kiba boasted with a feral grin before springing right at the stunned Takeda to follow up, "Take this! Tsuuga (Passing Fang)!" Leading with his claw hand, he corkscrewed through the air to increase his jumping speed and attack force.

The movement was quick and confusing enough that Takeda in his dazed state was unable to muster a proper evasive movement, instead being forced to defend with the proper boxing guard of protecting one's vitals using their forearms and fists to cover up.

This was not a good course of action to take when one was being assaulted with a weapon, especially when that weapon was bladed.

"Gah!" Takeda was knocked to the ground as a result of being bashed into so forcefully, both of his arms heavily cut up by Kiba's attack to the extent that the sleeves of his uniform had been torn off. Blood streamed freely from the multiple deep wounds he sported on his person. Most of the tape on his fists had been cut through, which meant that if he hadn't been blocking, Kiba would have managed to gaff his neck.

Such a wound would have been fatal. No doubt whatsoever. Even without being killed, Takeda was in a bad way. He didn't think he'd ever bled that much before, especially not so quickly. How deeply had he been cut?

Even though it looked rather bad, the prized puncher got back up. Okay, so he needed a better method of defending himself when he couldn't dodge attacks like that.

Kiba admitted that Takeda was awfully talented in his own way, but this was just a fight he had little chance of winning. Maybe if Kiba hadn't been armed Takeda would have had a better chance. But Kiba was wielding weaponry, and he was quicker than Takeda.

"One more time." The claw-wielding ninja said to himself as he moved in to end the fight with his signature move once more only to find his way blocked by the shadowy member of his team, "What the hell? Shino, what's your problem?"

"Killing him isn't the point." Shino said, turning around with his hands in his jacket pockets as he faced Takeda, "Since the others won't be getting out of that building, wouldn't it be better for the mission to replace our hostage instead of wasting this situation?"

"Bastards…" Takeda spat angrily under his breath. Now he was outnumbered as well as fighting with shredded flesh on his arms.

Kiba laughed with his eyes closed, "Ha, well ain't you the practical one Shino? That's cold though. Oh well." Before he could walk forward, he was again stopped by Shino holding him away with a hand on his chest, "What's the problem this time?"

Following Shino's finger with his gaze, Kiba eventually saw a thin, outstretched metal wire at neck height waiting for him to walk into it. When did that get there, and how?

"Ultra Bolo Punch!"

Kiba would have been caught with a vicious hard-turning punch had it not been for Shino. The sweeping blow moved in a hook-uppercut motion just underneath the metal wire, intending to catch him right underneath the jaw had Shino not shoved Takeda out of his attack before he could land the attack.

It had been so close that Kiba could feel the sweat and blood from Takeda fly off of the end of the fist and hit his face even when the punch didn't.

Ever astute, Shino wasn't fooled by the distracting motion of Takeda's right hand flicking out at him in a jab. His move had always been intended to outright ignore Shino and clock Kiba.

Angered at almost being knocked unconscious, Kiba sneered at the lone wire before severing it with his tekagi-shuko claw. When Shino heard the snap of metal he turned to his partner and just gave him a look that seemed to ask if he was an idiot or not. There was no time to really think on such a thing one way or the other.

From below, a snare wrapped around Kiba's leg, dragging him to the ground and to the far end of the day care grounds had he not severed that wire as well, "Son of a bitch!" He managed to stop himself just before he would have wound up being dragged through a mess of caltrops set on the ground, "That trap…"

As he looked over in the direction of where Shino had knocked Takeda the boxer was no longer in sight, with not even a blood trail to help them find where he'd gone.

"It's not important." Shino said as he pointed over to the burning building that grown into a full blaze, "There's no reason to be here any longer."

A snort came from Kiba as he stood back up and dusted himself off, "Tch." Looking around, he knew that whoever had pulled one over on him was still watching somewhere. Takeda hadn't gotten away on his own. Had it been Uzumaki? "If wires are the best you've got, you might as well lay down and die right now!"

XxX

(Nearby)

"Troublesome." Shikamaru said as he and Tenten helped Takeda away from the scene of the battle, "Kiba can cut my wires like they're nothing." He'd have to make sure that at all costs he avoided fighting him, "…And Shino too… he saw our trap."

Tenten looked over at the pensive look on Shikamaru's face. That furrowed brow was something that she hadn't seen on his face before, "You know those two guys?"

"Classmates."

"Ah."

Enough said. Kiba and Shino had been in his year and they had graduated. He hadn't, she hadn't, Naruto hadn't. They were here for Naruto, and it was for the best that he hadn't stopped to fight them. Not now. But at least now he knew what they were up against, and he'd seen some of what they could do.

Takeda was almost woozy from the blood loss, but he had enough of his wits about him to be difficult about leaving the way that they did, "Ugh. Go back. The others are inside of that building."

"No they're not." Tenten assured him, "We checked on them before we went to get to you."

"And?"

"And the Alliance lives!" Niijima shouted loudly as he and the others came into sight. In addition to Matsui, Mizunuma, and Kamioka they were with a freed Ukita, Siegfried, and of all people the hulking teenage sumo of Ragnarok; Thor, "In fact it's stronger than ever! Wahahahaha!"

Ukita wandered over and took Takeda off of Shikamaru and Tenten's hands for them, "That blonde bitch suckered me in. I'm sorry guys."

Takeda spared his friend a good-natured grin, feeling much better now that he could see that the judoka was safe and sound, "If it wasn't you it probably would have been me. That girl was smoking hot."

"Damn right she was. Oh God." Being kidnapped wasn't all bad. Ukita had been unconscious for the vast majority of it, and he wound up having a ketomine-induced dream about some of the things he wished that blonde girl wound up doing to him until he woke up tied up with a bag over his head, so there was that.

But why were Siegfried and Thor there? Shikamaru regarded them carefully. Both of them had been defeated rather recently by Kenichi and Naruto respectively, and they were acting all chummy now with their friends.

It was obvious that Shikamaru was apprehensive after the day he had been having, but he'd shown up. That meant something to everyone else, even Niijima who had figured that Shikamaru wouldn't show at all. That was why he went out to get the help that he'd managed to procure in Siegfried.

When Siegfried let it be known to his closest friend Thor the circumstances, the pride of the latter wouldn't allow him to let something so dishonorable occur with his knowledge, thus he came to assist Siegfried's part in Niijima's plan.

And it was damnably useful, as he was the entire reason they managed to get out of the burning day care while allowing Shikamaru and Tenten time to set the chain of events that kept Takeda from possibly being crippled again or killed.

"Don't look so suspicious." Niijima said, snaking his way between Shikamaru and Tenten, "Everything worked out fine."

Shikamaru just looked back to where he could still see smoke rising from the day care building where fire engine sirens were now convening on, "This is getting too dangerous." He said to himself, "You all aren't us. Possibly dying shouldn't be something that you should be prepared for."

A street fight was one thing. Hostage-taking and quick incendiary traps meant to kill those intending to rescue said hostage was something else entirely, especially when the conflict wasn't originally theirs to take part in.

Takeda just shook his head and grinned, "That's not true. Boxers die in the ring, and any fighting practitioner can get themselves killed. The second we all considered ourselves martial artists we agreed to taking that risk. Anything can go wrong. You can get yourself killed just training."

Thor crossed his broad arms and nodded in agreement, "Well said. I can see from what's happened tonight just what the Shade Alliance is about." Shikamaru just looked over at Niijima questioningly about the apparent name of the group, "Friendship, the spirit of different martial arts blending together for a noble common cause. And if Siegfried believes enough to side with you all, I trust my friend's judgment."

"I trust my dear demon king." Siegfried said, taking his hat off in a slight bow of respect to Niijima, "He guaranteed me the muse to push past the limits of my music, allowing me to write more of my compositions. And thus far he's been ri~~~ght!" He exclaimed in a singing manner, spinning around in a high-speed circle, "The dedication and the camaraderie! I feel an album's worth of inspiration coming my way!"

As weird as Siegfried was, Tenten was quicker to calm down about things than Shikamaru was. She had been in Ragnarok, even as an underling to one of the Fists, and knew enough of these people to know that especially from Thor and Siegfried, what you saw was what you got.

If you wanted the ulterior motives and the back alley dealings, the one you would have had to look out for was Loki. All of the others just carried themselves as straightforward martial artists.

There wasn't anything underneath the surface to look for in regards to those two. What you saw was what you got.

Looking over at her, Shikamaru saw the small smile on her face at the eccentricity of their allies. That meant that she was more or less sold on them. Tenten knew more of them than he did, so what place did he have to be distrustful? He was the one that told Naruto to take advantage of the insulation such a group would provide them, and he'd be a hell of a hypocrite if he didn't do the same.

So far he knew that Kiba and Shino from class, some blonde girl, and the cousin of Hinata formed the team dispatched to kill Naruto. If he was lucky they would take his and Tenten's interference in Takeda's fight as Naruto doing it from afar.

In that vein, Niijima's idea inside of the day care had a lot of merit behind it. The execution was clearly flawed from how the place went up in flames with everyone inside of it, but the basis behind it was effective if it could be done right.

Why not use Naruto's lack of presence as a weapon against the enemy?

And just like that, the wheels were turning inside of Shikamaru's head one more time. Until Naruto returned, this wasn't going to be an issue that was going to just go away or allow itself to be set on a backburner. There would be no timeouts simply because Naruto was nowhere to be found.

This whole thing was going to serve to be extremely troublesome.

* * *

**Right. A lot of focus on the other players in this act in the chapter, but I found it necessary. I mean, Naruto's busy training. Extended training montages aren't really that entertaining to write, so giving you the gist of what's up seems like enough. In the meantime, things still need to keep moving elsewhere.**

**But no need to be displeased. That little leg is basically over. It's time to bring this part of the story to a close. Some stuff is going to go down, so bear with me if you will.**

**...By the by, there are three of these. So yeah, you've probably got at least 30 minutes more of reading to do depending on your speed. I couldn't stop until I finished, as redundant as that sounds.**

**Sorry about that.**

******Later guys. Kenchi out.**


	16. Grin and Bear It

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I'm 22 years old now. That window to getting a break and getting rich is getting a little freaking smaller every passing June. Kishimoto… Matsuena… get on that and give me the rights already.

**Chapter 16: Grin and Bear It**

* * *

After the trap with the Shade Alliance, Shino and Kiba returned to the hideout where the latter had been going off and making a ruckus ever since getting back.

"I can't believe this shit!" Kiba yelled out loud, punching straight through the wall of the room that he, Shino, and Ino were in, "The son of a bitch is mocking me! Fucking trying to be funny or cute with that stupid trap!"

As far as Kiba was concerned, there wasn't anyone else that could have done such a thing right under his nose. Only a ninja had that kind of training, and as far as he knew Naruto was the only ninja in town.

Ino just sat off to the side, one bang hanging over an eye with her hand on her cheek, "All of that work wasted. We didn't even thin the herd any. And I thought that trap was really well set up. I did my best on that one, trapping them in, coordinating you two jerks to take care of any stragglers…"

"Thor and Siegfried of Ragnarok were supposed to be their enemies." Shino said, pushing his sunglasses up on his face, "One could not account for them garnering outside help."

"I'm actually kind of flattered." Ino admitted with a giggle, "The whole 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing. That doesn't really ever work out, but they sure tried to come together to deal with little old us didn't they?"

That comment was punctuated by Kiba kicking a nightstand across the room and dragging his claw across the wall, "Well I'm glad you think it's so flattering. But you weren't out there with that bastard making you look like an idiot from the shadows!"

The smile on Ino's face faded and a colder expression replaced it, "No, I wasn't. I was busy having to sit back and watch a bunch of idiots I could have crushed all by myself escape my trap because of some musical weirdo and a sumo wrestler with admittedly killer sideburns that we didn't see coming. So don't tell me I'm not upset. I'm just not butthurt about it the way you are."

"Say, we don't need all four of us to survive to complete this mission do we?"

"Oh go take your alpha male crap to someone who cares."

The tense situation was broken up when the door opened and Loki strolled into the room, hands in his coat pockets and grinning like a Cheshire cat. He'd been around quite a bit since his established working relationship with the Konoha ninjas had come to pass.

It was extremely strange. And they were just about to kick his ass out. He was hanging around a place he had no business in. He'd done the job they'd paid him to do on getting info on Naruto and his friends and acquaintances, so it was time to vamoose if or until he was needed again. They were grateful for the good work done.

Pushing that gratitude was not advised.

Shino moved to block his path before he could get too far into the room, "And what may I ask are you doing here Loki-san? I was unaware that your services were requested."

"They weren't." He replied matter-of-factly as he moved past Shino and found a place to sit down despite the hostility he could feel in the air, "I just figured I'd drop in and see just how the deluxe package I offered you has been treating you."

"Fine." Kiba snapped, "Now get out. Seriously. There's nothing for you here man." He was not in the mood to deal with any b.s. from some slick bastard.

"Is that so?" Loki asked, leaning against the armrest of his chair with his fist against his cheek, "Well if that's the case, I wonder why a little birdie told me that your hostage plan didn't work out too well."

Before he could even think about whether or not he should have taken the condescending tone out of his voice before speaking to killers, he found the business end of Kiba's claw at his throat, "I wonder who'd miss you outside of your stupid underlings if I just slit your throat." The team hothead asked, pushing the claw against Loki's neck closely enough to draw blood.

"I understand how you feel Kiba, but killing one of Loki's 'shadows' wouldn't really do much to alleviate the problem we have. Trust me."

Turning back to the door, everyone saw Neji standing there with a second Loki dropped just outside of the room. Apparently the leader of the pack had a distaste for Loki trying to shift what influence he thought he had with them into their operation.

Ino raised a slim blonde eyebrow at the sight of the Loki shadow on the floor, "Is he breathing?"

Neji barely spared a look back at the motionless doppelganger he'd dealt with outside, "Do you actually care?"

It took a moment for her to think about the answer to that question. As long as Neji could properly get rid of the body, and/or find them a new hideout, she didn't really care much at all. Loki was being a pest to the wrong folks, and if he was that loose with his doubles he should have been prepared for inappropriately overeager retaliation.

The white-eyed boss of the team walked up to the Loki shadow that Kiba still had at claw-point, a frigid gaze in his eyes that froze the fake in place even more than the threat of getting his neck cut did.

"Loki…" Neji said carefully, "I know you're listening somehow, so I'll tell you this once. I am not Odin. Do not overstep your bounds with me. The only reason I don't kill you for your insolence is because we don't have time to waste. But rest assured, you won't find us here again. If you find us again at all I'm sending Kiba to take care of you."

"I'm really good with loose ends." Kiba added with a toothy grin. He then gestured with his head for the shadow to get up and leave, which he did quickly, "And take that shit at the door with you!" After he dragged his fellow shadow off, Kiba turned back to Neji, "Yeah, did you really kill that one guy?"

"No." Neji said, crossing his arms over his chest and shutting his eyes, "I stopped his breathing, and he won't regain it for a few minutes, but it's not long enough to cause brain damage."

"Well aren't you gracious."

"Killing that person here would have caused more problems than it would have solved." Neji said, moving to exit the room, "Now come. We're changing hideouts."

There was something to be said about being in-control, levelheaded at all costs, and the man with a plan. There wasn't anything that seemed to throw Neji off. He had Naruto dead to rights and rightfully he should have drowned and died after their first meeting, but didn't let it get to him visibly afterwards. Even after the debacle with the day care and Loki's being a pest and trying to work an angle on him…

…They were still in control.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – With Naruto – Mountains Outside of Town)

"How are you doing kid?" Jiraiya asked as he watched Naruto strike repeatedly at the trunk of a tree with the palm of his bare hand, "Getting the motion for the jutsu down?"

This was the third jutsu in the list of offered ones that Jiraiya had deemed to teach Naruto in exchange for Naruto's endeavor to go and raise hell against Kenichi days ago. Even though he hadn't quite done what Jiraiya told him to, Jiraiya said that with what Hayato was training Kenichi to do he hadn't expected Naruto to fully get the drop on him and subdue him without being discovered.

Naruto asked how Jiraiya knew Hayato and in a panic Jiraiya said that you had to be a dumbass to not know of 'The Invincible Superman'. While that wasn't really explanatory of how Jiraiya really knew the man it did the job to shut Naruto up.

In reality, Jiraiya just made Naruto go fight so that he could send him off and have time to converse with Hayato. But it was still something productive for Naruto to do, and he'd done a good job improvising on what he could find around him since Jiraiya had sent him off without so much as arming him. Naruto opened his backpack on the way and found it full of rocks instead of his equipment.

The jerk.

Anyway, upon returning, Jiraiya immediately jumped into teaching Naruto with gusto, spending half of the next day teaching him the first jutsu.

The horror of learning it would stick with Naruto for the rest of his life. He quickly found out why the defibrillator was needed. Not cool.

But four days later Naruto was running through what he knew of the final jutsu that Jiraiya had gifted upon him, "I think I've got it Ero-sennin." Naruto said, constantly striking at the tree using his palm with intent, "Thanks a lot. I really owe you a lot for all of this."

A heartfelt smile came to Jiraiya's face before he let it fade. He didn't need Naruto to be seeing that. He had a reputation to keep, "Heh, of course you do. I'm so great a ninja I can even teach someone like you."

"Oi, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Hey, focus! The most important key to this attack is the motion you put into it." Jiraiya grabbed Naruto's arm and walked him through the motion of the blow, "Remember, grab with the hand and twist with the wrist at the exact moment of the strike. Combine the two supplementary motions I taught you." Motions he then demonstrated himself, "Grope the breast. Turn the doorknob. Grope the breast and turn the doorknob kid."

Yeah, Naruto understood. He'd spent an entire day learning each separate leg of the technique he was practicing before putting it all together. Calling one facet of the technique 'grope the breast' was a good way to help remember it, thus why Jiraiya did it.

It didn't make it any more comfortable to have him repeat every thirty seconds during the initial walkthroughs.

Jiraiya once again looked on in satisfaction at the progress Naruto was making, "I think it's time for you to head on back to town now. You're as good as you're going to get off of what I've taught you."

"Really?" Naruto asked, stopping his scrimmaging of the jutsu to look at Jiraiya unsurely, "I mean, I've only been here for five days-."

"Trust me. You learned the other two jutsu as well as I could ask you to, and the last one you're doing right now? Well, you're not going to master that without years of practice. Mastering that one means that you can do it without anyone ever even knowing that you used it. Real cloak-and-dagger, sleight-of-hand, big time assassin stuff."

And Naruto, he wasn't gearing up for an assassination. He was gearing up for a fight.

Jiraiya slapped Naruto lightly on the back of the head with a grin, "Anyway, you're done up here as far as I'm concerned. Go forth and kick ass. That is unless you want to stay up here in the mountains with this old man and learn the ways of the sage!"

Naruto grabbed up his backpack and physically couldn't have taken off any faster given that proposition, "See-you-round-thanks-alot-Erosennin!"

As the youngster took off, Jiraiya didn't think he'd seen him run that fast for the whole duration of his training. But even so, he'd been forgetting something when he ran away, "Five, four, three, two-." Lo and behold, Naruto slogged his way sheepishly back to Jiraiya who just chuckled and pointed in a general direction, "The highway's about fifteen miles that way and from there your town's still twenty-eight miles away. Best get going if you want to get home by sometime tomorrow."

"Right." Naruto gave him a salute and then took off at a speed he felt was comfortable for covering such a distance without killing himself, "Later Ero-sennin! I'll come back and see you once it's all over!"

Jiraiya leaned against the tree and just patted the place on it where Naruto had been striking, a spiral mark carved into the surface bark of it, "Good luck brat."

Now… to go and watch porn in the comfort of his own home without having some sixteen year-old constantly judging him. Seriously, it wasn't like he'd been touching himself. They'd already established that watching something on a screen did nothing for him like that anymore.

Geh, stupid kid. As if Jiraiya didn't see him trying to hide his boner the whole time. Amateur.

XxX

(Back in Town – City Streets)

Miu let out a wistful sight as she walked down the street holding groceries for the dojo in her arms. Having Naruto cut out and disappear was one thing, but having Kenichi taken away by her grandfather to train on top of that was turning out to be extremely lonely.

"Hah… I miss them." This was something that the lovely blonde was willing to admit openly with the present company she had with her. Hinata had at least been around waiting to run across Naruto enough that they'd become something along the lines of friends, "I didn't know how used I was to seeing them every day until now."

She lived on the Ryouzanpaku grounds with Kenichi and spent basically the majority of her time with him after he returned from early morning training, and Naruto was oftentimes there as well. He showed up en route to school, walked with them, spent every moment in school with them, and then returned to the dojo with them. Even before then she was acquainted with Naruto via their fists.

She'd gotten used to the presence of both, hence the lack of not just one but both of them left a massive void.

"You know both of them well don't you?" Hinata asked, smiling as she helped Miu carry her sundry goods and items. Why not try and be helpful? She was basically loitering around Ryouzanpaku property, so making herself somehow useful was something she could do, "I wonder if Naruto-kun even remembers me."

"Oh don't be so dour about it." Miu insisted in a friendly manner, "Look, after what you said happened I really doubt Naruto-kun would forget who you are." As grim as that sounded.

Yes, Naruto could be rather scatterbrained at times and insensitive at others, but he wasn't the kind of boy that would just downplay maiming someone. If he knew even half of the damage he wound up dealing her, there wouldn't be a chance that he'd have forgotten Hinata whatsoever. He was a good boy at heart despite the flaws you could see on the surface.

"Still…" Hinata's eyes instinctively drifted toward the ground despite her lack of useable vision, "We weren't actually close at all. I wasn't even sure if he knew my name when we were paired together for the yamikeigo where the accident happened. I know it sounds silly, but just hearing that he knew my name made me feel-." And she had almost said too much.

Censoring of her comments or not, she still let enough go that Miu was officially onto her. While at times daft she had a soft spot for romance, and she was all over this one. Preying on it like a shark smelling blood in the water.

"So you had a crush on Naruto-kun." Miu said with a coy look on her face, "That's adorable. Well, not really the part where he… you know." That rather put a damper on the romantic aspect of it all, "But the rest of it, it's so cute, you liking him from afar. Why didn't you say anything to him?"

"I-It's not that easy." Hinata insisted, "When you spend most of your time around a certain group of people and you see them every single day, when you like one of them… it's hard. What if he wasn't interested? What if he thought I was strange, or-." She stopped trying to reason and shook her head.

No, Miu understood. She _definitely_ understood. And Hinata didn't seem to be the type that was willing to put herself out there, for confidence reasons or if she was just that sort of a wallflower-personality.

"No, it wouldn't have worked out anyway." The dark blue-haired girl continued, "I just want to see him again, if only for a bit of closure."

That wasn't a very positive way to look at things, but this was an issue of something that Miu didn't know much about. It was a ninja thing, and even if it involved one of her closest friends and another budding one it was between them and not her.

A change of subject was probably best for the remainder of the walk home. Luckily Hinata was willing to provide that herself.

"I just don't want Neji-niisan to kill Naruto-kun. Not out of anger for what happened to me." She said sadly, "It's his mission, but he's taking it personally. I know he is. I don't want anyone to die at all."

Miu had never heard of a ninja with a Katsujinken mindset like that, but Hinata wasn't a ninja, she'd just trained as one in her youth. But there'd been no sign of the bad guys from Konoha since the Ukita kidnapping incident, so they were in the midst of a setback.

Perhaps Neji was getting impatient? That wasn't something he would normally allow to happen to himself, but that was just a sign of how closely invested in killing Naruto he was. The kidnapping thing was too risky a move to make without it leading directly to the checkmate for his side, which it most certainly did not.

"Things will be fine." Miu said, "You have to believe in your cousin and in Naruto-kun."

Hinata hoped that Miu was right. She really did. But the fact was that there weren't really happy endings when you were a ninja. And even though she herself wasn't one, she was privy to just how cruel the life could be.

Believing in both was only a dream, and believing in just one probably meant that the other would die.

As they continued to walk, Hinata felt that there were eyes upon her somewhere, but she couldn't tell where for obvious reasons. While she had no clue as to where the feeling was coming from, it was one she was accustomed to somehow.

It was the same feeling she'd get at home when she was able to catch Neji just looking at her from time to time.

Had she the sight to go with her fairly impressive sense of surrounding, Hinata might have for a second seen the view of similarly pale-colored eyes looking down from the top of an apartment complex before vanishing just as quickly.

XxX

(With Kenichi – Black Valley)

Damn the Elder. Damn his training to hell. Why did it have to hurt so much?

For the past few days, the basics of an all-important technique integral to his continued growth as a martial artist was taught to him the hard way. As the first technique that Hayato had taught to him, it had to be a serious equalizer.

Apparently he'd been preparing Kenichi for it during the first few days with his random sneak attacks that Kenichi could never see coming or anticipate. Naruto's random surprise ambush did him good as it put him in a more suspicious state of mind, actually allowing him to catch Hayato in the act and initiate the direct phase of the training.

Training that he'd been doing ever since.

Alternating through all of the stances that he'd learned since joining Ryouzanpaku, Kenichi used his arms at their full length as if he were training to keep his distance with nothing more than the reach provided by his upper body. What he'd learned would work with basically any style he'd learned thus far, making it invaluable once he mastered it.

His practice stopped when he heard rustling coming from a distance away in the forest, "…Elder?" Kenichi asked, as Hayato had gone off a short while ago to try and procure food for lunch.

A yellow-topped blur dashed into his training area and came to a sliding stop through the dirt and grass right in front of Kenichi, "Man, you barely moved campsites at all since the last time I was here." He barely had to search in a different pattern from the first time he dropped in, "Whatever. I'm going home! You comin'?"

What? He was heading back to town by himself? What about that person he referred to as 'Ero-sennin' the other day that he said he was training with? That guy wasn't anywhere in sight, whoever he was, "Did you finish your training?"

At that question Naruto stopped and took a moment to think to himself, listing things off on his fingers, "Let's see… I finished learning that, which I'm probably never gonna use because I hate it. I finished learning the other one; no idea how Ero-sennin even knew enough about it to teach it. And I can't learn _that last_ _jutsu_ any better than I already did without spending years on it apparently. So yeah, I'm done."

Kenichi just stared at Naruto, not able to help a stroke of jealousy at hearing that in roughly the same amount of time he'd been out there, Naruto got down three moves, "You learned three techniques out here?"

"Well I wouldn't call one of them an actual technique because it doesn't really do anything. Another one I kind of already knew to start with. And the last one was the only one I really learned from scratch." Naruto said with a big grin as if that made it any better to hear, "So are you gonna stay out here? Because that's fine, but I kind of want to get home as fast as I can now."

He'd been out there long enough in his own personal opinion. Too many things had been left in the air for him to enjoy taking his time and training. Jiraiya said he was fully healed and good to go on the jutsu he'd been taught, so it was time to get back and clean house.

The grin on Naruto's face belied just how much he was chomping at the bit to get to it.

Kenichi too wished to return home. For every waking moment not spent eating over the last few days he'd been doing it training. He hadn't focused in so intently on one technique since he'd learned the basic Stepping Method that originally started all of this for him.

When Hayato basically abducted him from the dojo him he left behind everything he had as well. Clothes, phone, everything. Still, on their own that would be one hell of a trip back. They were way out there away from town.

Besides, he wasn't excused yet.

"OF COURSE KEN-CHAN CAN JOIN YOU NARUTO-KUN!" From the skies, Hayato crashed down between them like a meteor, scaring the hell out of both Naruto and Kenichi as the ground fractured beneath his feet, "The entire reason we've come out here is because of the dedication that he and Miu showed to supporting you!"

Naruto just stared at him in horror for a moment before letting go of the tree he'd clutched onto like a frightened squirrel, "…Old man, if you were close enough to hear us say that why couldn't you just walk here instead of falling like somebody catapulted you here!?"

Kenichi ignored that frightening tidbit of the run-in for what he deemed was more important, "You mean I can go back?"

"Yes." Hayato said in a calmer manner, "Ken-chan, the only way any of us as masters of yours can truly show you the darker side of martial arts is to allow you to experience it firsthand. Nothing that you hear from any of us or from Naruto-kun can explain it enough for you until you're pitted in a true battle for your life."

Dregs of fear from his old life surfaced before Kenichi brutally squashed them down and nodded in understanding. This was the way it would have to be if he was as serious about the martial arts as he wanted to be. No cowardice would be allowed when it counted.

With his bit being said to his young charge, Hayato turned to Naruto, "And you? This issue is yours if you so choose to face it as such. You don't have to go back. As you are now, you can always make your escape."

Surely Shigure would have concerns of allowing such a thing to occur, but this was their way as masters. To let their students have their own hardships to endure, even if it ran the risk for them of death. To let them make their own choice, even if it led to the end of the line.

Certainly they more often than not tried to coax them one way or another, but at times like this there was nothing any outside influence could do. Most of the time though, when you had the right person there was nothing you had to worry about in that regard.

"I'm not running from anybody. I'm definitely not leaving nuke-nin hunters after me in the town to find Shikamaru and Tenten." Naruto said resolutely, "Neji Hyuuga is a genin." An admittedly badass genin, but still just a genin in the grand scheme of things, "After all I've been through and all I've dealt with, if I can't stand up to a genin… I guess I don't deserve to go any further."

If this was the thing that finally brought his anomalous story as a shinobi to an end, so be it. Apparently it was one that was never intended to go this far to begin with, so having it end in this manner would be appropriate.

But he wouldn't lose. Not again. Not to Neji.

A ninja usually didn't have their pick of when, where, and how they died. But if Naruto was going to go out, the one thing he could make sure of was that he went out trying to fight for something worthwhile. Maybe then if the worst actually came to pass, he could face it with a smile on his face.

Naruto flinched when Hayato set his hand on his head, a reflex after having no real positive experiences with the man or any physical contact initiated between them in the past, but nothing happened. This was something Naruto considered odd. He assumed that Hayato just never liked him what with how he constantly treated the majority of his interactions with Miu (even now), and the constant aura of dread Naruto picked up around him.

He wasn't getting that this time. Was it pity? Was it understanding or empathy? Naruto didn't know.

"Would you like assistance in getting back to town?" Hayato offered, prompting Kenichi to try and get Naruto's attention to silently insist that he refrain from accepting. Naruto however, didn't quite pick up on this.

"Uh, yeah. Sure." While he probably _could_ do it he'd never tried it before in one go, and running thirty to forty miles back to town depending on how far away they were didn't really appeal to him.

Thus he found himself tucked underneath his arm, Kenichi underneath the other one as Hayato took off into the air with a series of powerful leaps, "TO THE DOJO!"

"I MADE A MISTAKE! I MADE A MISTAKE! PUT ME DOWN!"

"NEVER AGAIN NARUTO-SAN!"

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Valley)

A man wearing backwoods attire with long light purple, almost light enough to be silver, hair carried a pair of large water buckets over his shoulders to his wilderness cabin. Lately there had been at least two intrusions of powerful ki into his place of seclusion. But instead of being perturbed or concerned, he was interested by them.

Because they were apparently both training youngsters. Interesting youngsters.

The boy with brown hair that Hayato had been teaching didn't seem like much of a fighter at first glance, but he was very well trained. Very down to earth in regards to himself. He had rather low self-esteem for a martial artist, but somehow he figured that he belonged in the presence of someone such as Fuurinji Hayato.

The blond boy had something interesting hidden beneath the surface of his aura, and he looked awfully familiar. Even if he'd only seen him for a short while before the boy left into the deeper mountains, he never forgot a face, and he knew full well where he'd seen traits similar to his before. How intriguing.

Looking up into the air at the sound of two respective screams of horror piercing the natural tranquility of the Black Valley, he saw a hulking silhouette holding two figures underneath his arms, constantly jumping through the air in the direction of a town.

The hometown of his disciple if he estimated himself to be correct in that assumption.

Hmm, it had been a while since he'd checked in on Ryuuto and the group of young fighters that his student decided he would amass him to pick and choose from to teach as his other potential disciples. That group obviously didn't include the brown-haired boy if he was there with Hayato of all people.

"Okay, I'm interested." The man said to himself as he set his water down and headed into his cabin to get some of the few possessions he'd taken into his hermitage, "Let's see what these children have found themselves in."

It was always so interesting watching the development and the issues of the younger up-and-coming disciples.

XxX

(With Shikamaru – Back in Town – Unfinished Construction Site)

If this situation with the Konoha ninja force after them was going to encompass everyone, it was for the best that everyone involved would be briefed on the matter.

As loathe as Shikamaru was to play floor director and field general, he was the one that had pieced together things the most from all sides of the scenario based on what everyone respectively knew so far.

Consequently, it was time to take stock of things and begin stirring the pot.

He retraced the steps that he'd heard Naruto had taken on that last day before he disappeared and had then chosen to take the initiative for once. In this endeavor he had chosen to enlist the assistance of perhaps the only person his age that he would deem more troublesome than Naruto.

The reason for that being that when push came to shove he would probably never wind up in a fight with Naruto, while in regards to who he was with, the first few months of his time in town revolved around partially finding a way to either quickly defeat or get past her.

Yes, Shikamaru had recruited Fuurinji Miu to accompany him. He wasn't a fan of fighting, and if it was necessary he was usually going to be the last to 'knuckle up' so to speak. So this was necessary.

Why she brought Hinata as well way beyond his comprehension.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Miu asked, dressed in her normal purple fighting outfit and tennis shoes. Shikamaru had asked her to come with him based on doing something productive, and since sitting at home doing chores and training herself due to her grandfather's absence didn't appeal to her she was quick to agree, "I didn't think you were the type to look for trouble Shikamaru-san."

"I'm not looking for trouble. I'm trying to make something work." Shikamaru replied as he jumped onto the top of a fence and dropped smoothly to the ground without even taking his hands out of his pockets, "I said it before; if I don't at least try to do something about this I won't be able to look myself in the mirror again."

Easily, Miu cleared the fence in one jump with a pensive look on her face, "Well I don't want to sound skeptical that you mean what you say, but you never struck me as the most… go-getting kind of person."

"It's either be a go-getter or watch my friend get hunted down, so I really don't have a choice… as troublesome as it is." Shikamaru said with an annoyed groan.

"Oh no!" Miu then realized that they'd have to jump back over to get Hinata who was blind, only to sigh in relief when she wound up jumping over the fence herself without assistance, "Whew… I thought we'd left you behind for a minute there."

Hinata just smiled gratefully at the thought of her caring, "No, I was trained for half of the curriculum before my accident, so I'm partly conditioned. I never lost that much." She just needed to know where the fence was and she was fine with getting herself over, "I just had to try and readjust what I could to make up for not being able to see."

Oh, how industrious of her. And here Miu was assuming that she was fairly helpless. Unlike Naruto and Tenten, Hinata didn't walk around armed to the teeth, and unlike Shikamaru she didn't carry herself with that aloof air of anonymity that he tried to maintain.

"He's really sorry about that by the way." Shikamaru said, "Naruto. We've talked about it some since then and he really hates what he did. If he knew just how much damage he really did I don't think he'd forgive himself."

"No, I don't want him to feel guilt or anything." Hinata said quietly, eyes instinctively panned to the ground, "In fact, if he does feel guilty I'll tell him it's alright. I didn't really want to be a ninja anyway. It was something expected of me."

She was five years old going on six at the time she began, her family was one of the original old world clans that comprised the early concept of Konoha, and it was tradition that the firstborns amongst the Hyuuga were to become ninjas.

Blindness was a rather steep price to pay for freedom from a life she hadn't been fond of, but there was something to be said about taking a negative and spinning it to a positive.

"I've got news for you." Shikamaru said with a bit of a wry smile, "Just because you tell him not to feel guilty doesn't mean that he won't. Being nice about it would probably make him feel worse. If you yelled at him you might be able to distract him from being guilty by pissing him off. Other than that…" He left it at that with a shrug before remembering that the person he'd done it for couldn't see.

"My grandfather taught me martial arts because he said that he didn't want to raise a spoiled child." Miu said, trying to find some sort of common ground in the form of their respective childhood training, "I don't even know when I started. I think training is the first thing I have solid memories about."

"I know, and it really sucks." Shikamaru complained, "I'm sure I had a decent spark of motivation before I started and Konoha just worked it out of me, but I just can't remember. All I remember about the old days was that my parents gave me a choice. I could either go to regular school for 17 years minimum with mom already riding me about schoolwork I hadn't even started yet, or ninja school instead and get out in 10 with no mom on my case."

He thought being a ninja would at least make life interesting, so that was what he selected.

Epic fail of a life choice.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Looking up at a beam hanging above the alley they were in, Shikamaru and Miu saw Hermit and Berserker standing there looking down at them. Hinata bristled at the unfamiliar, harsh-sounding and unfamiliar voice, while Shikamaru had basically expected as much.

Miu just stood ready for whatever was to occur. Could Shikamaru fight a Fist? Well, he'd beaten Loki, but he hadn't fought him until he had neutralized every possible avenue available to the tactician before taking him on. In this case there were tons of variables to account for.

It didn't matter. If it came to a fight, she'd fight for him and Hinata. It wasn't like she hadn't been through worse before.

"We didn't come to start trouble." Shikamaru said, holding up his hands defensively, "We just thought you would like to put this whole feud off to the side for the time being to deal with the ninjas here." From the way that the bubble Berserker had been blowing popped, he could tell there was some sort of intrigue from the number two of Ragnarok in regards to the Konoha contingent.

Hermit just dropped from the beam down onto the ground, arms crossed over his chest as his hood hid his features from view, "And how did you find out enough about our new hideout to get this close to begin with?"

"Thor and Siegfried."

"So that's why those bastards haven't been back since then… and they went and joined up with weaklings like you?"

"Our strongest two already beat them, so who's a weakling?" Shikamaru asked with a raised eyebrow, "I couldn't care less what you think about me, but when you're talking about other people you might want to think about what you say first. Some things can really make you sound dumb."

Putting aside the fact that he himself had beaten Loki. He didn't really feel like publicizing that too much. It would wind up being more trouble than it was worth.

But still, antagonizing the potentially volatile guy in the dark clothes and hood? Not the best idea for one that valued their health.

"You really must be in a hurry to die." Hermit said.

Shikamaru just rolled his eyes at the threat. He was way past being frightened by threats. He'd already decided to face down his own mortality when he learned that there was a hit squad in town after his nuke-nin of a partner. He wasn't going to say that he was brave, but at this point it would take more than a lame one-liner to scare him.

"We don't even need you." Berserker said, breaking his usual silence to make a comment, "Word's hit the street on where those ninja chumps are. Kisara's gang is already surrounding the place."

Oh, and that wasn't good.

Shikamaru's plan had been to smoke out the enemy by beginning to let rumors leak of Naruto's 'location', and he had planned to begin by swerving Ragnarok. In no time at all, because it was obvious a spy was afoot somewhere, it would get to the Konoha ninjas, and he could make preparations to pick off at least one. But now apparently the bad guys knew where the badder guys were and thought it would be a good idea to throw force at them.

He had intended to use Ragnarok to get ahead from the start. But not in a way that would get them killed. Kiba would kill them, and it wasn't just him that would fight, it was an entire squad of four.

This was going to get quite a few of them killed. The actual Fists had a chance of dealing with it. The nameless goons that served no purpose other than general grunt work and base intimidation purposes on the other hand…

The term bloodbath might not have been an exaggeration.

"Where?" Shikamaru asked tersely. Yes, he was angry. The quick-to-act reaction was what he'd been banking on from Ragnarok, but apparently he hadn't been the only one. It wasn't the Konoha team though. They definitely wouldn't have done anything like that, even if it would have attracted Naruto to them. While it definitely would have worked to lure him in, it was too risky a venture.

That meant there was a third party in this that was somehow vested.

Okay, it seemed that it was time to call an audible.

XxX

(A Short Time Later – Across Town – Truck Depot)

Stationary transport trailers were strewn all over the massive parking lot, but those weren't the only things scattered all about.

Bodies of the unfortunate Ragnarok folks that had been dispatched to head inside and hunt for the four ninjas that had been plaguing the town also littered the lot. No one that went into the gated-off area wound up coming back out, and even across the highway the sounds of fear and human suffering could be heard.

"I sent fifty guys in there. And didn't Freya-chan send the Valkyries in?" Kisara said to herself, staring across the freeway at the apparent hideout of the enemy, "Tch, if you want something done right…"

Waiting for an opening in traffic she ran straight across the road and jumped up to throw her legs over the fence to land on the other side. Once she got over, things looked worse than they originally appeared.

There was a significant amount of blood trailing through the open center of the lot, and she could see it was created by one of her gang members being dragged away by another, "Come on! Come on! We've gotta get outta here!"

"Not… human."

Walking to the edge of a trailer to look around the corner she saw basically one man cutting down what was supposed to be her revamped team of underlings. They weren't even fighting anymore, they were running.

In the middle of a breakout, four Ragnarok members took off running only for Kiba to leap onto the trailers and run along with them. His black clothes were smudged with blood and his toothy grin was absolutely feral.

"I almost feel bad." Kiba said, brandishing his tekagi-shuko claw, almost dangerously gleaming in the sunset light, "…Almost. Tsuuga (Passing Fang)!" Diving down from his elevated position, he spun while leading with his dangerous weapon, cutting down all four in one sinister rush.

The cries of pain and anguish were either outright ignored, or Kiba relished in the sounds. He clearly wasn't deterred by them from his actions. This was far too easy.

"You bastard!" Kiba ducked a kick aimed at his head and flipped out of the way of a falling one meant to follow up and crush his skull. That was fast _and_ strong. Maybe this one would be tough. From the looks of the redhead she certainly looked like she would be, "Who do you think you are?"

"Trying to do our job." Kiba replied with a chuckle, "Which is to kill Uzumaki. What do you not get about that? It's simple. Stay the hell out of the way, and we won't wreck your cute little street gang. This is big kid work, we're not playing games."

Kisara sneered and stood in her Taekwondo stance, ready to do battle, "I'll show you what kind of 'games' I'm playing."

"Will you now?"

The almost playful tone of a girl's voice as she felt a light prick on her arm forced Kisara to turn around and throw a kick that missed. She glanced at the back of her now bleeding elbow and suddenly felt as if she were seeing double.

At Kiba's side, Ino stood, holding up her hands in a pair of fists, mocking a conventional fighting stance. One the middle finger of each hand she had some sort of metallic black band wrapped around them. They looked like regular rings, until Ino twisted them and revealed the two short spikes that they possessed.

Kiba just shook his head, "You didn't use the fast-acting stuff this time?"

"No, I did." Ino remarked, wondering why Kisara was still up, "One prick should have been enough to put down a deer. She must be tougher than Judo-boy was." She flipped her hair back and shooed Kiba away, "Right, right. I'll finish up here. Neji wanted examples made since people aren't getting the point of staying out of the way."

"Away I go then." Kiba said before heading off to continue the basic manhunt. There was no open way out unless you planned on trying to climb your way out over the fifteen foot fence, and he'd hear any jingle of the chain link that comprised it, "Don't take too long! Me and 'Shades' don't want to do this all ourselves!"

Kisara could hear them speaking, but it was almost as if she were hearing the voices through a layer of water in her ears. She did her best to keep from swaying on her feet, years of training the balance of her kicks helped her keep steady.

That bitch… she poisoned her, and so easily. She really had been a ninja. Wait, a kunoichi. That was the female version of one of those things wasn't it?

She seemed to be preening about it as well, "You're so weird." Ino's voice came to her in waves, "The big guy dropped much quicker than you did and you got the exact same dose I gave him. Oh well. One more won't kill you." She then stopped to think about her previous statement, "Oops, actually it just might. This isn't the kind of thing you want an overdose of."

Great, so she had to avoid even being scratched with those stupid rings and she was already behind the eight-ball so to speak. She was as sluggish as a sloth, and nothing seemed to be fading. So which Ino should she try to dodge? All three maybe, just to be safe?

To avoid Ino's kakute-armed punches she opted to take a risk and jump right over her, clearing the blond girl only to stumble upon her landing, 'Not good.' All she had to do was land one blow though. Just one. The girl looked frailer than she did. There was no way she could endure a power kick.

But with every kick she tried, even if she was able to truly complete the necessary motion behind each respective stroke her moves were slower, more deliberate. She felt like an amateur again, having to focus as hard as she could just to perform a simple roundhouse kick while retaining her footing.

Standing on her left leg she lashed out with a rapid series of reaching right-legged kicks, but it seemed as if she were kicking at specters of her target, as each Ino she aimed at was an incorrect double created by her own drugged mindset.

Not a single one came close to hitting Ino who was keeping out of the way almost casually, taking her time to make sure the fiery redhead wasn't playing possum to sucker her in. After confirming that her poisoning had done its job, Ino dashed at her in a zigzag pattern.

Whether it was necessary or not was far from the point. In control or not, she needed to finish the fight cleanly and finish helping the others clean up the idiots that attacked them.

'I won't even have to break out a real jutsu to end this one.' Before she got close enough to land her strike, a yellow and purple blur dashed between her and Kisara, grabbing her arm and forcefully moving her around Kisara without allowing her to make contact with her poisoned kakute.

Ino flipped and rolled through the momentum-manipulating throw, landing back on her feet to face off with a fellow blonde sporting a great rack. Ino tilted her head in interest… and self-consciousness.

She hadn't ever felt inadequate in the breast department before until now. No way in hell that girl was a teenager.

"Are you alright?" Miu asked, standing at the ready to fight in Kisara's place.

It took a moment for Kisara to filter Miu's words through her hazy head and realize who had dropped in on her battle, "…Dairy Cow?"

A displeased Miu turned back around to face her with a frown and a twitch to her brow, "I really wish you wouldn't call me that. My name is Miu." She'd noticed how shaky Kisara had been from afar when she'd been sprinting onto the scene, but getting there up close she could see just how pallid her skin color was, "Oh God, are you alright?"

Technically this girl was the enemy, but she found herself disliking Ino much more than Miu at the moment, "Was Ukita fine after this girl got to him?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll be fine… I just need to rest and get my shit together."

A nod came from the curvy femme as she turned her attention back to Ino who had taken the time to size her up instead of attacking callously, "You hurt friends of mine, and you're trying to kill Naruto-kun. What did he ever do to you?"

"It's a mission honey. I don't have anything against him personally. Not really. But when you're told to do something you either do it or you wind up in his situation." Ino reasoned. She knew for a fact that if you didn't grow up in their system you would never understand certain things about it, "We all learned what we'd gotten ourselves into, and we knew what could happen to us."

"-After you made the choice." The more Miu looked upon and found out more about the life of the ninja the less she liked about it. Tenten had been right when they'd spoken about it in the past. Being a ninja really wasn't as noble as she had wanted it to seem from her interactions with Naruto. As far as the shinobi ilk went he seemed to be a strange anomaly.

"The same as any other kid that makes any other decision." Ino said with a shrug, "You're really going to tell me that you really understood the concept of consequence in kindergarten? And some of the things regular people do back then follow them to this day. It doesn't matter how old you are when you make a choice, you still have to own it, no matter what."

Right, and as a friend of the person that was 'owning it', Miu chose to own that she wasn't going to let other people try to kill him if she could help it.

Ino tucked her rings into her clothes momentarily to douse them with more of the poison she carried on her person before endeavoring to take this new girl on. She didn't know anything about her, so it would serve to be careful.

Her plan was simple; land one blow. That was all. One sting of the kakute and her adversary would slow and become her prey. There wasn't any escaping it. No one she had faced was immune to the toxin. And she had overloaded her deadly rings this time. One half-assed stab would be all she needed.

Her approach was to use misdirection in her lateral movement to catch her enemy off-guard.

Unfortunately her opponent was far more skilled than she could have imagined. That, and Miu had grown accustomed to watching someone who was faster and had much trickier footwork in his arsenal. Ino hadn't been sneaky in the least.

Ducking Ino's short jab, Miu quickly retaliated with three quick blows to the body with her fists to knock her back a spell. Hearing Ino sharply inhale, Miu lifted her leg up high, bent at the knee before snapping the lower portion of it upward in a sharp, swift kick, "Fuurinji Dankuu Yokudan Geri (Fuurinji Void Wind Kick)!"

The attack landed underneath Ino's chin and knocked her head upward, entirely independent of her neck muscles' attempt to brace against the blow.

In one extra motion, Miu placed one open hand on Ino's chest before smashing her other hand into the back of it, hitting forward forcefully with both at the same time, "Fuurinji Awase Tsubute (Furinji Simultaneous Blows)!" Ino's body was knocked harshly to the ground where she didn't get back up, her hair jostled loose from her ponytail.

Miu sighed and wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm. Shikamaru had told her to hustle on ahead and that he'd catch up, thus that was what she had done. It wouldn't do to provide the poor, overmatched Ragnarok underlings assistance any later than what it already was from her arrival.

That hadn't been so terribly difficult. Ino's moves had been technically excellent, but there was something behind them that was missing. Something that made Naruto's more difficult to deal with. While his moves might not have been as textbook, they had more soul, more heart behind them. More variety. It was just a thought.

Kisara's head was still swimming, but she was able to clearly see how Miu had handled Ino and figured to herself that she needed to find some way to train harder before she decided to fight that girl. Ino hadn't been unskilled by any stretch, and she hadn't been slow or underestimating her at all. She'd merely been overmatched.

'That Dairy Cow is kind of scary.' Ragnarok's Valkyrie thought to herself as she watched Miu shake her wrist out from her last delivered strike, 'She made that look simple.'

"I care about my friends very much." Miu said matter-of-factly, "Now you know tha-." Her statement was interrupted by a sweep at her legs that seemed to come from nowhere. Aware of her surroundings she could feel the shift in atmosphere and jumped over it onto a trailer where she was forced to avoid the swipe of Kiba's claw, "Wah!"

The close call slashed at the belly of her leotard, cutting through it and exposing her smooth flesh and navel. The first attack she had hardly been able to anticipate until it was too late, and it was just a diversion for Kiba's move. So where was the other one? The one called 'Shades'?

Kiba just chuckled and pulled the purple piece of Miu's clothing off of his claw, "Okay, you got Ino. Good luck getting us."

With a huff, she prepared to continue fighting when she felt a pair of hands wrap around her legs. She didn't sense him coming AGAIN until it was too late!

Finding herself pulled down off of the trailer but with no Shino in sight once her feet touched the ground, she looked up after being covered with the descending shadow of Kiba, who dropped in a crushing double stomp intended for her head. She dodged, and upon landing Kiba posted one hand on the ground and swung his entire body her way, lashing out with his legs in a powerful kick that she avoided.

Running past the side of the trailer to continue his attack, Kiba dragged his claw down the side of it, kicking up sparks to try and make a distraction enough for him to strike a blow. Miu dodged a lunge of his claw aimed at her head before she felt a presence behind her. Instinctively she reached behind her to slam them to the ground, but it was like she was grabbing for a ghost.

After seeing her reaction just to feeling his presence from behind, Shino decided that approaching her directly from the back wasn't the best idea. Good to know. His interference almost resulted in a blow landing for Kiba. Instead of cutting Miu he simply cut the back of her leotard out, exposing her bare backside to the elements.

'He's fast!' Miu thought to herself, finding Kiba's method of attacking much more streamlined than Ino's. There was less nonsense, he was quicker, and with the wounds that his weapon could easily cause she was extra wary of its metal edges, 'With that weapon he doesn't have to strike hard, all he has to do is land something. So he can focus on his speed.'

He didn't seem to be so much a surgeon, able to inflict wounds with precision and express intent behind every move. Kiba's attack seemed to dress him as more of a ripper, a butcher. He would strike a blow, it would tear flesh, it would spill blood, and if he was allowed to do so he would end lives.

As things wore on she quickly picked up on the point of what their tandem offense was intended to do. Kiba would be the main portion of the attack, and instead of trying to land a finishing blow from the shadows, Shino would merely cause ample distraction to allow Kiba to strike her down. Apparently he wasn't a fan of actually doing the fighting.

They were relentless though, and being stuck between two trailers wasn't the way that Miu desired to fight a battle. Jumping directly up, Miu performed a split and held herself up by her feet on the sides of the trailers until Kiba passed beneath her. Dropping to the ground she ran to try and get out into a more open area only to stop once she got out in a position to see outside of the gate to the depot.

Even Kiba and Shino drew themselves to a stop upon seeing what they did. Right at the front gate, led by at least a dozen Loki lookalikes there was a full force of new delinquents, not Ragnarok affiliated. Many of them were trying to beat on the gravely injured Ragnarok members that had managed to get outside of the gate in a bid to escape.

It was a scene that Miu had no clue as to the purpose of. What was the point? What was even going on? Loki wasn't Ragnarok any longer, that was common knowledge, so now he was turning against them? Now of all times? Someone either had great timing, or had expected the events of that evening to occur in such a manner.

"Tch." Kiba said, more annoyed than concerned, "So I think I see this bastard's endgame now."

A nod of agreement came from Shino, "He thinks, or thought, that he could use us to whittle away at his old gang while building his own to replace them."

"And then he'd try to turn 'em on us." Kiba finished for him, "He sent those loser shadows of his to piss us off so that Neji would issue that ultimatum, and then he leaked our location to the Ragna-tards once he was sure we were done bullshitting."

Clapping came from outside of the gate as the crowd parted and what one could only assume to be the real Loki walked forward, "And now do you see what all of that tunnel vision on Uzumaki gets you?" Loki asked in a condescending manner, "You could have been with me. We could have built something stronger than Ragnarok."

Rolling his eyes, Kiba picked at his ear, "Yeah, no. We're already part of something stronger. And as far as I'm concerned if you're just here to pick up the scraps of what we already did you're not even part of something stronger."

"Attempting to descend upon us and kill two birds with one stone, wiping out both us and Ragnarok's remnants in one go." There wasn't anything accusatory in Shino's words, as he fully understood the merits of trying to wipe out two targets at once. That didn't make it the best idea however, "…Neji-san is going to end your life you know." He said as if it were a fact of nature.

"Well I'd love to see him try." Loki strode to the front and leaned up against the fence, "I've got one hundred strong here. I've got people in this group I trained myself to match up to the Fists of Ragnarok. There's two of you, a girl in a sexy outfit, the kunoichi, and a useless Valkyrie in there."

"In that case the only question I've got for you is…" Kiba said, drawing his own claw across his cheek to cut himself without flinching for emphasis, "…Which one of you is stupid enough to come in here first?"

No one moved. He was already splattered with the blood of others, and the only wound on his person after decimating Ragnarok's undercard players was _self-inflicted_. The killing intent he had in spades was entirely unnecessary from that point to back them all down.

The gate was locked tight, so going up and over was the only way in. No one was particularly excited to lead the charge over, even if they did basically have it surrounded.

"No takers? Okay then. Shut the fuck up, and let us finish dealing with the girl in here with us that actually has some courage and some talent." Kiba's attention turned back to Miu as Shino vanished amongst the trailers again to continue their tandem assault upon the game Miu, "We'll kill the rest of you after we're done if Neji doesn't get bored and do it himself."

'What?' Miu kicked aside Kiba's claw hook that came at her with little warning and continued engaging her rabid foe, 'He's still fighting me when there's all of that to face out there!?'

He was like an attack dog, honed in on a single target. And damn the extenuating circumstances that went along with it, when he started a fight he was going to finish it. It was why having to pull back from fighting Takeda during the fire irked him so badly.

Loki just snickered and watched the fight as an interested bystander. No matter who won, The rabid ninja or the monster-strong blonde hottie, the winner was going to get mobbed, and that was just the way it was, "Fool. If they joined forces they would have at least been able to put up a better fight."

As this continued, from the back of Loki's amassed group a ruckus started to break out.

Fighters started to turn around and begin trying to engage an oncoming force. From the loud voice shouting commands and the raucous response as things kicked into gear it was a force that Loki knew well, as they had foiled him before.

"No!" Loki bellowed as he surrounded himself with his personally trained group of elites, "Not again! Why?"

The organized rabble that had busted apart his plans at the mall.

And even though the team powerhouse Ukita and the third-strongest in Takeda were hurt this time around, they had found very effective replacements in his old comrades Thor and Siegfried, which he had known about. But then again he hadn't been expecting the Shade Alliance at all to stick their noses in this.

The fight was on, and it was a fight that his side was steadily losing. All of his work picking up thugs that had been run over by Ragnarok's ascent and wanted revenge, his work in training his own top-level elites, ruined before it ever began.

Discretion was the better part of Loki's valor, and sending his shadows forth to run interference he took his elite guard and left as quickly as he could.

In the middle of the fray, ignoring all of the fighting going on around him, Shikamaru's eyes followed Loki as closely as he could and he endeavored to pursue and put an end to his crap once and for all. He'd made a huge mess out of his plans, but luckily there was always one boneheaded ploy that could oftentimes work.

Just use force.

So what if he had to coerce that force by convincing them all that he was in direct contact with Naruto and Kenichi, assuring them that they'd get assistance from their commanders during the battle after it started? Hey, it got the job done.

And it let him move through the fray without anyone paying him anything more than a second glance. He wasn't much for direct fighting anyway, and his eyes were right on his only actual current target in all of this. The troublemaker that had busted up his original plan to get at the Konoha group.

'We thrive in the chaos of the enemy tide. Ninja do not need dens to hide.' Shikamaru thought to himself as he weaved his way through the fight, following Loki's retreat with his eyes all the way, 'All we need to do is watch and wait. Until the enemy lowers the gate.'

Nothing made you more of a target of opportunity than being caught running away from a pitched battle. Bad form tactician, bad form indeed.

With that he slipped away to try and follow Loki before he managed to escape. Getting him for a second time would be easy enough, especially if he was in a panic the way he seemed to be from what Shikamaru had seen already.

Meanwhile, the battle itself was not so much an even encounter as it should have been given the fact that the Shade Alliance was outnumbered. It was a thrashing, because Loki's side simply lacked quality despite their quantity.

Perhaps it was because aside from the 'shadows' only meant to be stand-ins for Loki, the real Loki had taken the only worthwhile fighters on-hand to defend him just in case while he fled? Just a thought.

"Haha! This is a revelation!" Thor cried enthusiastically as he struck away at hapless foes with palm strikes and open-handed slaps, "I haven't felt this alive in a fight since I joined Ragnarok!"

"My blood is alive with the melody of the fight!" Siegfried barely avoided the strike of a fake-Loki's baton before brutally retaliating and striking three pretenders down with rotating fisticuffs, "I wish I had my pen and pad with me!" Letting a leg roam free his rotations resulted in him lashing out at several more enemies.

"Yes!" Niijima crowed, surrounded by a few members for protection as Matsui proudly waved the flag, "Feel the force of the Shade Alliance!" Squinting past the battle at the gated truck depot he could see the rapidly moving figures of Kiba and Miu with spots of Shino visible from time to time, "Get to the lot! One of our most valuable assets is trapped in there with the real enemy!"

But that would take a bit of time. As long as there was opposition outside there was no way to get to Miu and her two-on-one situation.

At least that was the case until a human bulldozer tore straight through the fray and quickly scaled the fence before landing on the other side. Niijima's face lit up in glee at the sight and let it be known even if no one else was aware of the situation, "Your Assault Commander has returned!"

The sound of the cry reached Shikamaru as he was reaching the crest of a hill, continuing his pursuit of Loki. All he could do was shake his head. He really hadn't been planning for Naruto or Kenichi to show up. He just said threw it out there in order to initiate combat and take advantage of the bedlam that the Shade Alliance would cause in order to get things done.

Now that was serious reliability.

XxX

In the truck lot, Kiba stopped attacking Miu in order to face the fool that had actually called his bluff and climbed over to interfere in his battle.

Who was the kid in the white dress shirt and brown pants? With that band-aid on his cheek he looked like… Shirahama Kenichi? The guy that was Uzumaki Naruto's best friend? Okay, good for him. But why the hell was he coming for him in particular. Not very intelligent of him.

Without saying a word, Kenichi glared at Kiba and slid into his fighting stance, paying no mind to the blood all over Kiba that belonged to fallen others. Kenichi was already seeing red, from having to watch Kiba try to rend Miu to ribbons with that claw from afar.

"I'm so sick of doling out warnings." The leather jacket-clad stated flatly, "All this red stuff around here ain't paint, and it ain't tomato paste either if you catch my drift. Tell me where Uzumaki is. If you don't know, get the fuck out of the way."

"You're handing out warnings?" Kenichi asked, not backing off a step, "I've got one for you. Stay away from my friend. And stay away from Miu-san! I'm your opponent now!"

Who was he trying to look cool for? The girl? Aww, he was sweet on her. That was going to make this more entertaining than he originally thought it would have been, to tear the kid apart in front of the woman he was trying to defend.

His eyes panned over to Miu for a moment before scoffing and maintaining his attention on Kenichi. It was fine with Kiba. It didn't matter which one he got to tear apart first, just as long as he got to do it. Bring it on.

Shino seemed to be gone from the area, but that didn't matter to Kiba. A fight was a fight, "You know ninjas can specialize in all kinds of parts of the life. Guess what I'm best at!" He shouted as he rushed to attack Kenichi.

Just before getting in lunging range of him, Kiba jumped to the side to push himself off of the side of a trailer to garner more momentum behind his attack and throw off Kenichi's defensive timing to dodge him.

Instead of dodging, Kenichi waited until Kiba's strike moved just past the length of his fingertips. His second hand grabbed Kiba's arm safely past the claw and wrapped the inside of the striking arm around the back of his own neck to hold him in place, 'He stopped my attack with his bare hands! Is he nuts?'

Kenichi turned to stand in stride with Kiba as he placed the tip of his fist backhand-style against his upper chest before spinning and slamming both of them back-first to the ground with the sweep of a leg, "Sumokudori!"

Needless to say, Kiba's landing was far harsher than Kenichi's.

Miu was stunned. Not only had Kenichi refused to balk in the face of a speedy enemy that she was more than certain was faster than him, he managed to stop and counter his attack in the same move, "Kenichi-kun!"

Kiba got back up as quickly as he could and shook his gravel-encrusted hair out after his harsh landing, wondering just what the hell had happened, 'What the hell did he do with his arms?' Squinting and trying to analyze the attack, Kiba could see the subtle placement of Kenichi's arms, an optimal position away from his body to attack or defend with them.

While one would never take him for being perceptive, Kiba was astute enough to see that this was some sort of defensive shell technique. Son of a bitch, he was controlling the distance around him with the reach of his arms.

'Grandfather taught him the Seikuuken (Control of the Air Sphere)!' Miu thought happily as she was enraptured with how the fight was being handled, 'I don't know why he had to take him into the woods for that… but still!'

Growling to himself at being overcome, Kiba unzipped his jacket and reached inside to pull out a second tekagi-shuko claw to place on his other hand. The audience he had in regards to Miu gasped at seeing that he had another one of those things, "Right. Let's see how you deal with this."

Despite learning from Shigure on how to deal with weapons, Kenichi hadn't battled anyone that used tools such as these. A cross between armed and unarmed fighting. He had yet to deal with something such as this. As that reality set in, the only indication on his person of his worry at the situation was a single gulp.

He was in all the way now. He'd already made that choice.

XxX

(Nearby Ridge)

Shikamaru's pursuit of Loki was getting annoying at this point. The last time he did this there hadn't been nearly as much running involved. Running easily listed top three in the list of things he despised with all of his heart and soul.

Suddenly he turned around without warning and found himself staring at Shino before the heavily concealed teen could make enough of an attempt to hide his presence the way he had done against Miu.

To Shikamaru's knowledge Shino wasn't armed, at least not heavily armed. Kiba had only come with his claws and Ino had only fought with her kakote rings. It made sense. They weren't native Japanese, and since they had to fly across the world they wouldn't have been able to take as many weapons as a ninja based in the East Asian Pacific Rim region normally would have carried.

Smuggling weapons when travelling and operating like normal folks was a problem that they'd been taught how to deal with early in their ninja learning. When working in the daylight where you were definitely going to be seen, only carry what you needed and what you could hide from plain sight.

It was why Naruto cheated by constantly keeping his backpack on, so he could stay armed constantly no matter the circumstance. Tenten circumvented this by finding ways to hide copious small projectiles on her person.

Shikamaru stuck to strictly using wires so that he didn't have to rely on sharper tools and objects and run the risk of getting called for it. Ninja wire was more than sharp enough to let him cut through certain things anyway. It was a multipurpose tool, and the one he had specialized in.

What Shino specialized in, other than the art of misdirection and stealth, he had no idea.

The two underwhelming personalities stared at one another for the longest time before Shikamaru sighed. This prompted Shino to speak, "I remember you. Nara Shikamaru, correct?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't remember me." Shikamaru admitted, "But then again there were only so many of us, and you did see me every day for years before I was kicked out."

"Would I be correct in deducing that you're with Uzumaki Naruto?" Though nothing in his voice or what could be seen of Shino's expression changed, "If you fight me I'm afraid that you won't be able to recover."

"If this had been a few months ago, hell no. As a matter of fact you wouldn't have even known I was here. But let's just say that things change." Shikamaru said, "Sometimes things happen and you can't just get out of the way."

"Very well then." It was as acceptable a reasoning as any that Shino could determine. People grew, people changed, "How did you discover my presence? I know you were not aware that you were being followed."

"I'll never tell." Shikamaru replied, hiding the now loose wire that had been tied around his thumb until Shino had tripped his self-warning method that he'd used to feel him coming, "So… are we going to fight now?"

"Are you going to interfere with our mission?"

While Shikamaru was a nuke-nin as well, that could wait until it was reported and became relevant. As of then, the mission was to kill Naruto and only Naruto. As far as Shino was concerned this didn't have to occur. Not unless Shikamaru did what he felt would have been a grave mistake.

"…Yes."

Sometimes the right thing to do wasn't always the smart thing to do, as Shikamaru was soon to find out.

XxX

(Nearby – Across the Highway – Weighing Station)

Loki's elite guard lasted all of forty-five seconds.

In the midst of his retreat he'd been intercepted by the man that had issued him a threat, more of a promise really, that the next time he got involved with their business he would take it upon himself to deal with him.

"All… all six." Loki said in complete shock, "That's impossible! I trained them all to be the level of the Fists! I trained them more thoroughly than I train my shadows!" And here they were, left lying on the pavement. Casualties of the elegant assault of one Hyuuga Neji, who hadn't so much as had his clothing brushed by the enemy.

"You're intelligent Loki." Neji said, not a speck of dust, sweat, or blood on him after his decimation of Loki's team, "But a weakness comes with believing yourself to be the smartest person in the room. One doesn't need to be as intelligent as you are to handle your scheming. They only need to be intelligent enough." Slowly he walked to his prey, set on bringing things to a close right then and there.

Fight or flight in his heart, Loki chose to at least make an effort in combat. He knew that a man that could neutralize Berserker in one move could crush him, but it was either try to fight or lose his life without a struggle.

He was still a talented martial artist in his own right without all of the plans he tried to enact.

His Spear Hand Karate was dependent on him landing a blow to initiate the use of his joints to create combinations though, and hitting Neji was a task he simply wasn't up to. With the use of his open-hand style of fighting, Neji cast aside each punch that Loki threw with a cultured ease about him until finally responding with a light push of the chest, meant to do nothing more than shove Loki a step or two back.

It was all the space he needed with his Baguazhang skills.

"You're in range of my divination." Neji said before striking out at Loki again, "Two palms!" Before he could even physically react to the punishing blows, Neji had glided around to his left side to further the onslaught, "Four palms!" He rotated back to the front to prevent Loki from stumbling outside of his range of circling, "Eight palms!" Straight around to the back to leave no portion of his torso unbuttered, "Sixteen palms!" It was a free-for-all of striking at this point, and he simply wouldn't allow Loki to fall until his was done, "Thirty-two palms!"

All culminating in a final pulverizing strike straight to the sternum that knocked Loki forcefully to the ground, the internal devastation inflicted upon him by Neji enough to freely bring blood gushing from his mouth before he ever hit the ground.

"Hakke Rokujūyon Shou (Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms)."

The moment he hit the ground, Loki sputtered up more blood from his lips and twitched in place. And yet the only pity he received from Neji was the thought that he should have listened all along. When you thought you were smart enough to handle anything, you could fool yourself into thinking that dangers weren't really as perilous as they otherwise would have appeared.

Loki knew what the score was, and he kept going anyway. One's luck had to run dry eventually.

"Neji-niisan!"

There wasn't a hint of surprise when Neji witnessed Hinata in attendance nearby. She had obviously been present to hear him deal with Loki. It was a wonder how she found him on her own, but he knew full well that she was vastly more capable than most people would perceive any blind person to be. For her, being blind was nothing more than living her training in the dark every second of every day.

She had followed him from their family home and he had realized this earlier in the day when he had been scouting the alleged ally of target Uzumaki Naruto; Fuurinji Miu. He found Hinata along with the girl he had been intending to follow.

His mission statement. He hadn't destroyed it the way he usually would have in his haste to get to work, and she must have gotten someone to read it to her. It wouldn't have been hard to do so. There were plenty of others in the house that would do so upon request. It also wouldn't have been hard for her to ascertain exactly where he had gone to begin his mission.

Curses, he had been too careless in his excitement to enact familial revenge on that ninja cur Uzumaki. Had he been more thorough in his departure she would never have known the nature of his mission until it was over.

Neji figured Hinata would have somehow come along once he found that Loki's enemies had descended upon the trap that the silver trickster had laid for his team and for Ragnarok. Finding him in particular despite the melee back at the depot had been a feat worth noting on her part though.

"Hinata-sama you shouldn't be here." Neji reasoned with her gently, belying the surgical efficiency he had just displayed in picking apart Loki's elite guard and then in gravely injuring Loki himself, "Not only are you not a ninja of Konoha, I'm certain that you know of the nature of my task."

"That's why I've come!" Hinata said, walking forward in the direction that she could hear Neji's voice from, "I don't want you to-… you don't need to kill Naruto-kun!" She heard Loki gasp a bloody rattle and made her way over to him, kneeling down by him and frowning as she felt along his chest.

Hinata pressed one hand on top of the other and sharply pressed down on a place in Loki's chest where something vital was being blocked from Neji's final attack. His ribs cracked from the intended pressure, but for now his life would be preserved. As painful for him as it was, it was necessary if he were to have a chance of remaining alive long enough to be treated.

Neji's gaze sharpened at the prospect of granting that man any measure of leniency. Truly Hinata was infinitely more compassionate than him, willing to grant mercy to an unknown figure such as Loki. The same as her graceful forgiveness that she was willing to bestow unto one who had harmed her so viciously. That vile Uzumaki Naruto.

She could write it off, but he was unable to let it go. He felt offense where she did not.

He hadn't been there when she'd been injured, but he saw her right after it had occurred. He and Hiashi could do nothing as she fought for her life through the early stages of her treatment. And when her condition was no longer critical… they were hit with the news of the blindness that had been inflicted upon her.

Unforgivable.

Had Hiashi's station not been so high up he would have gone to Naruto and ended his wretched life then and there as recompense. Had Neji not been more concerned with his cousin's career-ending injury he would have been the same.

His hate had dulled, all the way until the moment he graduated and was told what would have happened had he not been deemed to be a good enough ninja candidate a handful of years before. He had assumed that Naruto had been executed for instability until that moment, and from that point his hate took true root.

Upon his return to his ancestral home, upon seeing Hinata, that hatred grew. Interacting with the sweet girl, watching her get by day-by-day… having to face her positive demeanor despite it all… that hate festered in him.

And then he was given his mission and it felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had been given wings. Fate had given him the opportunity to right the mistake that it had made years ago.

It was his destiny to put things right.

So Hinata could forgive. She could show her sorrow and even shed a tear upon Naruto's grave. But Neji could not. He would not. He simply did not have the capacity to do so.

He knew Naruto was there before Hinata ever did. His eyes were on him without either ever even letting on that he was present.

Naruto's clothes were different. Not wearing the uniform of a high school this time around.

Instead he now wore loose black pants bunched into his treaded athletic shoes and a black tanktop with wrappings visible around his midriff, possibly remnants from the injuries that had been dealt to him not too long ago. His right arm was heavily taped, starting at his hand and climbing up to his bicep with a black brace framing his elbow.

Well someone was dressed to fight. As always his trusty supply backpack was on his back and his goggles snugly sat on his forehead.

His footsteps had been silent. Perfectly silent. There was one thing that the brute of a failure could accomplish admittedly. He could move like a ninja. That didn't make him one however.

He was still a dropout. A failure still playing at ninja even after his callous dismissal from the lifestyle.

He was supposed to suffer and die on his suicide mission for his failure! He was supposed to quit upon being revealed to be inferior to the task assigned to him! He was supposed to die again after he had gone toe-to-toe with Neji and once more found himself to measure up as inadequate!

So why was he here? Why was he standing there with him and Hinata, standing over Loki and inspecting his wounds? Hinata had no idea of Naruto's presence, and Neji wasn't even looking at him, but he didn't have to!

"Hinata-sama, please leave me." Neji said calmly. He wanted to yell. He wanted to gnash his teeth in bitter recess. But he would not allow himself to destroy something beautiful. He would not tarnish something as sacred as the way his beloved cousin viewed him. Her destiny had already caused her to suffer, and he would not heap onto such a thing, "I will be with you shortly."

Hinata's pale eyes turned Neji's way, never knowing that the person she sought out to protect was standing right there with her, "…A-Alright. As long as we can talk about this."

"We will. You have my word."

Nodding to the affirmation from Neji, Hinata got her bearings of where she was and left the area from whence she came. There was nothing more she could do for Loki, but Neji would not execute him. She would alert someone that could actually help him and wait for Neji to find her again so that they could talk about the mission to kill Naruto.

She never saw the look of abject, realized horror on Naruto's face as he watched her leave. For once the loudest man in the room had nothing to say.

He knew that she was Hinata. He would never forget that face (God, she was gorgeous), those solid pale eyes. He knew she was blind. The way she carried herself let on to that much, even if Neji had never broken the news to him during their first meeting.

He couldn't speak. His voice died in his throat upon truly seeing the extent of what he had done. What he had done that he couldn't even remember. How could he have done anything like that to such a girl?

Neji and Naruto both stood in silence with only Loki's labored breaths piercing the silence hanging over the area, "I would like to actually thank you for something." Neji finally said after what seemed like an eternity, "There was no need for you to let your presence be known to her. It would only cause her pain to know that I was truly about to kill you. So for your silence and discretion you have my gratitude."

He despised Naruto with every fiber of his being, but he would not kill him in front of her. Naruto had even given up his element of surprise over him out of sheer shock and awe. He had wandered onto the scene as if he were shell-shocked at the realization of what he'd truly done to Hinata.

But he would still have to die. It was the only way Neji could cleanse his mind of the hateful taint that plagued him.

"I shut up because… I didn't know what I would have said." Naruto told him, "How do you-? I mean, what do you say to someone that you blinded? Somehow 'sorry' doesn't sound good enough."

But that was that, and this was something else entirely. Empty your head Naruto. Fretting about Hinata would only hinder you now. But when he was standing across from her cousin, it would be foolish to think that his mind wouldn't drift.

A wandering mind in this instance would have been a fatal hindrance to have.

* * *

**Let's bring this to a close shall we? That's enough for now I'd say.**

**Kenchi out.**


	17. Survival of the Fittest

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I'm going to write a book entitled "How To Suck At Everything" by Kenchi618 (or whatever alias I'll be using at the time). It'll be a best-selling piece of self-deprecating humor, anecdotes, and satirical self-help inserts.

And I will finally be rich as hell.

**Chapter 17: Survival of the Fittest**

* * *

Shikamaru had to be losing his mind.

Three months ago he would have run away, changed his name, given himself plastic surgery, whatever he would have had to do he would have done it in order to avoid any kind of confrontation with members of the worldwide clan that had cast him from its ranks.

And now he stood facing off with a member of the exact Konoha organization that had done such a thing. An actual graduate that had finished the program, and he was going to try and fight him.

The Nara Shikamaru from three months ago would have punched the current Shikamaru straight in the testicles for even humoring the idea of doing something so troublesome… if it wouldn't have been just as much of a drag to actually commit that action.

But here he was, locked in combat with a full-fledged ninja.

It was funny how life worked out wasn't it?

And by 'funny', Shikamaru would have meant wholly terrifying and vindictive.

Shino was faster, but not by much as Shikamaru strode backwards to go against his enemy's forward movement. Digging his feet in, Shikamaru punched forward to see what was up only for Shino to turn to the side to slip the punch and bump Shikamaru's body with his shoulder at the outside, just behind his bicep and shoulder as the target area.

Recovering and trying a second punch, this time Shino ducked and bumped his inside torso with his shoulder, refraining from leaving it that as he followed up with a forward step that low-kicked Shikamaru's lead leg to trip him up as he bounced back again.

Falling back, Shikamaru rolled through and landed back on his feet, 'Fuck! This is the Taiken (Body Fist) method of taijutsu!'

A disorienting focus of striking that made a user utilize their whole body for the techniques. Just perfect, because as the guy that fought using wires to grab his opponents and bind them he _would_ have to fight the one guy that wouldn't present him any limbs to tie up unless necessary.

He'd seen enough. He didn't need to test Shino any longer to see what he could do. He now needed to go through a system of trial and error to find something that worked, building a true trump of a plan all the while. Thus, out came the wire, stretched between Shikamaru's hands, whether Shino could see it well or not.

"Ah." Shino said, able to see the glare of the almost fully set sun reflecting off of the thin wires, "So it was you who interfered during the hostage situation."

Shikamaru didn't answer. He was done talking. At this point it would only serve to be troublesome.

His first offensive maneuver was a double-reverse claw swipe using both hands to stretch out his wire for entanglement, only to miss when Shino again ducked the move and leaned in to throw his entire body behind lunging at Shikamaru's lead knee.

Shikamaru wasn't keen on having his leg broken, and bent his front leg knee to fortify it and rebuke the advance without losing his leg in the process. Shino instead of allowing himself to be moved back, wrapped his leg around Shikamaru's, insides meeting. This forced Shikamaru to have to turn towards him in order to keep from falling to the ground and maintain his balance.

He was a sitting duck for a non-Taiken attack as Shino unleashed a horrid series of blows with his fists, rising from his crouch to put force behind it right on Shikamaru's chin and jaw.

Shino was a tall, lanky young man, and he was visibly thicker than Shikamaru as well. That size put force that Shikamaru didn't have behind one hell of a punch combo that he'd set up beautifully.

He would have sworn that he'd felt his teeth break from the impact if he hadn't run his tongue over the tops of them to make sure shortly after getting hit.

Blood dripped from his lip slightly as he did this, but he was getting it. He had to take a punch to let him know he was really in a fight and truly in some danger. It had been a long time since he'd felt the adrenaline of a real battle pump through him.

Shino seemed to always go low, whether his eventual target was high or not.

Normally uncomfortable close quarters would be where Shikamaru would shine in battle. People would float arms and legs away from their bodies that he could use to bind them with his specialty in Hojoujutsu (Binding Techniques) to leave them at his mercy. With Shino he had nothing to tie, and with their positioning on an open hill he had nothing to set wire traps with to ensnare him.

Did he really have to get that creative in order to win this thing?

The way Shino was fighting wasn't grappling. If it was grappling that would have made it infinitely easier for Shikamaru to get him. He was still striking, but he was simply using the core of his body for all of the significant techniques.

Pushing the offense now, Shino got close to Shikamaru before juking to the side, crossing up the outsides of their legs. It was such a fast motion Shikamaru didn't know just what was happening until Shino simply sat back and down on it. From that point he could feel tendons popping and tearing in the back of his knee.

"Gah!" With his knee trapped between the back of Shino's calf and thigh as he literally sat on his kneecap, Shikamaru screamed in pain, 'He'll break my leg! If I don't-!' "AAAHHH!"

The pressure was immense, and with the positioning of his other leg Shikamaru didn't have the leverage to shove him off with it. All he could do was push against the knee-shattering pressure. Stretching out his wire in a desperation move, Shikamaru managed to loop it around one of Shino's wrists and pulled to try and draw it tight around it.

Shino was forced to hop off in order to free his wrist once he felt the light touch of the wire wrap around it. Had Shikamaru pulled tightly he would have cut deeply enough to slit his wrist.

Shikamaru used that time to get back up and play off just how badly his leg was injured. He couldn't stand gingerly. He had to put the normal amount of weight on both legs, and he couldn't allow himself to flinch.

Shino was no fool though. He felt the give that Shikamaru's leg put forth from his last attack. He had a bum wheel now, and all of the posturing in the world wouldn't hide that injury from him, 'It is time to put an end to this.' Shino thought to himself, 'This time he will not get back up.'

The complete lack of mobility advantage that Shikamaru was cursed with at the start of the fight had only multiplied in its severity now. Shino wasn't the swiftest, even as someone good at stealth, but he might as well have been from the affliction that had befallen the pineapple-haired nuke-nin.

Shikamaru couldn't run, jump, and he could barely turn. But he was able to zero in on Shino's movements and anticipate them, turning his body in time with the off-angle on him that Shino chose to take. He would not be getting any leg, arm, or backside this time.

That was fine, because it had never been his intention.

"Never underestimate your opponent, no matter how things may seem." Shino was right in front of Shikamaru, and popped up underneath his guard to hurl his entire body over Shikamaru's pressing him to the ground. Both slid to the end of the bluff they were on as he shoved his forearm right into Shikamaru's throat, set on ending his life, "You should have had a trump card Nara-san."

He then felt wire triple-wrapped around his forearm tight enough that had he not been wearing clothes with sleeves it would have cut into his flesh. The entire time, all Shikamaru wanted was enough of a limb presented to him to turn the tide.

Sometimes you had to bait the deadly animal to the very limit of your own life to force it into its downfall.

"…The first move… is always a feint." Twisting his body and using his grip with the wire, Shikamaru pulled Shino over the side of the bluff, sending both boys spilling down the dusty, rocky, steep decline, rolling over one another, forced to stick close together by way of Shikamaru's Hojoujutsu.

At the bottom of the bluff the dirt changed to asphalt and painted lines with the two of them finding themselves smack on the highway, cars honking their horns as they shifted lanes and veered past. Shikamaru wound up on top, glaring down intently as he tried to wrap his wire around Shino's neck. This was his chance and he had to take it. He _had_ to.

Headlights from directly ahead almost blinded him and stopped his endeavor to try and strangle his foe who was struggling to fight him off.

With a gasp he shifted his body to roll Shino on top before feeling a semi pass directly over him and relieve him of the burden on top of him.

The powerful truck air blowing past him wasn't fatal. The truck itself that had hit Shino… well let's just say that the sound of bone crunching and flesh meeting 50 mph-moving metal didn't instill much confidence that anything would have been able to survive it.

Shikamaru shut his eyes, anticipating being run over before he felt road rash from hell on his back, "Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" He yelped as he found himself dragged back into the dirt and sat up only to see his kunoichi fellow nuke-nin holding onto his ankle, "…Tenten?"

The pink-clad girl simply frowned and helped him up and out of there in a hurry before anyone could get a good look at one of them, "You're just lucky that you called the landline about your plan and left a message telling me where to go." Tenten said as she hustled them out of sight of the highway as cars pulled over to survey the accident, "But couldn't you have waited?"

Getting saved from being turned to roadkill by a girl. Troublesome. Knowing women the way he did she was going to lord that over him forever now, "…Should've let the damn cars hit me."

"Come on whiner. Let's go home."

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Kenichi – Truck Depot)

Kenichi still stood at the ready. He had sent Kiba's previous savage assault back from whence it came with the use of his newly learned Seikuuken, but that didn't deter the brutal ninja nearly as much as the docile warrior would have hoped.

Miu who still stood in amazement at Kenichi developing such a high level skill. What in God's name did her grandfather do to him to have him learn such a thing in a week? She wasn't sure she wanted to know, 'Kenichi-kun must be a Sei-type ki-user to be able to use the Seikuuken. The only way anyone can use this techniques is with a calm mind.'

"That guy." Kisara said, leaning sluggishly on Miu's shoulder after she had gone to retrieve her, "There's something about him now that wasn't there when I last fought against you all. I don't know, but he seems surer of himself." She didn't know how to explain it.

Indeed, from the look on his face, Kenichi was as cool as a cucumber. All of the time he'd spent learning the Seikuuken, and the resolution that he'd made to support what he felt was the difference between right and wrong, he was as sure of himself and his path as he had ever been before, "I won't lose."

It was as simple as that. Did it need to be anymore complex?

One of Kiba's canines poked over his bottom lip as he crouched down in contemplation. Whatever technique this Kenichi guy was using, it was formidable. If he was confident enough in it to utilize it against someone brandishing razor-sharp tekagi-shuko claws it had to really be something.

"Right." Kiba said to himself, pulling a pellet from his jacket pocket, "Well when in doubt-." He then hurled it right at Kenichi who smacked at it, forcing it to burst into a plume of smoke that covered him entire, "Can't counter what you can't see. Now try this! Gatsuuga (Fang Passing Fang)!"

Instead of leading with one claw, this time Kiba had both poised to rip Kenichi apart within the smoke as he launched himself inside and spun his body in a drill-like motion. It was his most dangerous jutsu.

"Gah!" Even if Kiba didn't get all of Kenichi due to his lack of vision, he didn't have to. Kenichi left the smokescreen as quickly as he could, but wound up getting cut rather badly on his left arm and shoulder, losing his sleeve and half of the chest of his shirt as he and bled down the limb, "That's sharp!"

"No shit!" Kiba shouted as he slid to a stop and continued his attack, "Come on! Stop me again! Do that thing you tried before!" He taunted, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he danced around the open gravel ground of the depot.

Miu bit her lip in apprehension. Seeing the blood run down Kenichi's shoulder she began to think that letting him fight on his own was a mistake until she noticed the look of grave determination on his face. He hadn't resigned himself to defeat or to fear despite his bloody wound, and interfering now would crush his spirit. This was something that she had to let him do on his own.

The cuts looked worse than they really felt as Kenichi was able to put the stinging out of mind to reenter the necessary state of clarity required to utilize Seikuuken, 'His moves aren't power-based. They're dependant on speed.'

Kiba's Gatsuuga was used to carve up an enemy with dozens of deep cuts upon contact. Unless he hit you flush there was no blowback from the technique that would send you in any certain direction. It made him dangerous to even try to touch while he was using it, but there had to be something that could be done.

To attack was safer than to defend in this case. Seikuuken or not, there wasn't much Kenichi could do with it if he couldn't even touch his enemy to fend them off and counter.

'Here we go.' Kenichi said to himself as he moved forward to engage once more. Kiba grinned at the courageous action and came forward to meet him, swiping at him with two claw shots, Kenichi leaned back out of the way of the first and ducked the second before side rolling and lashing out with a front kick to the body that shoved Kiba back a few steps.

Kiba was having trouble breaking Kenichi's style down. Every time he started to feel like he was getting a hold of Kenichi's rhythm and method of technique he seemed to change basic combat principles entirely. One second he seemed ready to engage head-on, the next he was breaking off his attack and varying styles completely.

With a yell Kiba became the aggressor once more, setting the tempo to his own liking. More claw techniques, until he saw a spark in Kenichi's eyes during a wider swing than he'd been throwing prior. Kenichi moved closer despite the incoming attack and used his forearm to stop the claw arm from completing its arc.

While the outside of Kiba's hands were covered by the weapons, the insides of his arms were safe to come into contact with without being cut. Kenichi blocked his attack on the inside and wrapped the hand of that very same arm around the back of his head and neck along with his other one to initiate a clinch.

Kiba felt the air driven out of his lungs with two hard knee strikes to his belly before he instinctively started thrashing around to free his head. In the course of this he lowered his head, something Kenichi had been waiting for "Kao Loi (Flying Knee)!" Kenichi jumped into Kiba's lowering motion and kneed him right in the face, knocking him back and down to the ground.

Sitting up almost immediately, Kiba held his nose from which blood gushed freely, "Ugh, you fucker! You broke my nose!" He shouted in a muffled voice as he got back up, "What the hell's with the way you fight? It's like you switch styles every five seconds!"

It took a second for Kenichi to get over the fact that Kiba had shrugged off the Kao Loi. That one was more than often tough enough to get the job done in knocking out an opponent. What a durable enemy.

"It's how I was trained." Kenichi eventually reasoned verbally, "I know Karate, Chinese Kenpo, Jujitsu, and Muay Thai. So I use all sorts of techniques from those styles because I learned them all at the same time."

Kiba just stared at him strangely, "…Who learns all of that at the same time!? What are you, some kind of freak?" So he knew at least four separate styles. It didn't matter. He was going to show Kenichi one of his favorite techniques. The Gatsuuga was his strongest, but at times it was too straightforward to be reliable in a pinch.

No, he had other things for that.

His composure gathered once more, Kiba sprinted straight at Kenichi who had set up his Seikuuken again, only for Kiba to baseball slide at his legs, 'No!' Kenichi hadn't learned how to protect himself at his lower body with the Seikuken as his arms couldn't reach that low and keep the stance.

He had always been forced to fight people that were bigger than him, thus he was used to attacks coming from much higher, especially ones as fast as Kiba's.

In his panic his defense fell, just when Kiba shot his leg up and drilled him with a kick square in the belly. Grinning as he felt the air leave Kenichi's body, Kiba planted his clawed hands onto the ground and swung his legs around to kick Kenichi in the side of the head with his other shin, spinning through with it to land back on his feet with his back to Kenichi, "Taste the Juujin Rendan (Beast Human Barrage)!"

Spinning like a whirling dervish Kiba clawed away at Kenichi with each rotation he made. Kenichi kept his arms up, but they were being cut to hell. He was protecting his vitals, but Kiba was treating him like a piece of meat. It was a good thing Naruto made him tape his fists up to his forearms back at his house. That protective shell was keeping his arms from being torn apart too heavily.

He had to reset the Seikuuken. A low attack threw him earlier off but he had to put it back up now. He had to remember what he was taught.

You couldn't block a weapon barehanded, you had to counter it.

"Kakushi Dageki (Crane's Neck Blow)!" During one of Kiba's straightforward strikes, Kenichi knocked it down just behind the bladed portion of the claw to knock his hand down and push his own hand back up, using the curved side of his wrist to impact underneath Kiba's chin to stun him.

Kisara's eyes lit up in recognition of just how effective that short attack was, "He's got to go now!"

"Finish him Kenichi-kun!" Miu was getting desperate at seeing him get torn up from Kiba's claws. This was the opening he had been waiting for, and he had to take it or he might not get another one. Each time Kenichi let his advantage fade, Kiba learned more and more about how to handle his fighting style, "You have to take him now!"

Gritting his teeth, Kenichi immediately lunged forward and followed up while Kiba was disoriented and wide-open. He landed a dual punch to the body and face simultaneously, bridging immediately into grabbing the back of Kiba's head and delivering a jumping knee to the face. From there he landed in a crouch and seamlessly transitioned into grabbing Kiba's leg tight against his chest with crushing pressure before standing straight up and lifting the leg over his head to throw Kiba up and onto the back of his head.

This was something he'd figured out before ever even going into the Black Valley. Those moves had a rhythm to them that flowed for him despite all belonging to four separate styles. It was something he developed in order to stitch together some sort of combination attack, and the result was this brutal finishing technique.

He had needed a sure-fire way to take down tougher enemies for certain anyway. After watching Naruto fight Thor and see just what it took to keep some people down he'd wanted his own signature move.

It was the Strongest Combo that Kenichi could muster to his name, and Kiba remained folded up, body over head from where Kenichi had thrown him. Apparently it worked.

Damn his arms hurt. Thank God for tape.

"KENICHI-SAMA!"

Cheers sprang up from the outside of the gate as members of the apparent Shade Alliance celebrated the victory, raucously banging on the chain link fencing and hooting. It was almost too much for Kenichi's self-esteem to take, 'I… won. I beat a Satsujiken?'

Yep. Kiba still hadn't moving yet. He was totally out of it.

Kenichi's breaths came out heavy after the tough fight as he looked around at the people surrounding the lot. Turning over to Miu who still supported Kisara he felt his insides twist up at the smile she gave him.

Fondness, pride, and relief. They filled that gaze. Ah, that sort of smile was something he'd been training all this time for months to see directed at him from her.

"Is that Ino? And holy shit that's Kiba. You beat Kiba bud?"

Everyone's eyes snapped to the top of a truck bed where Naruto stood crouched and observing the scene with interest. Those were his old classmates for sure. A grin peeked through on his face when he heard everyone react favorably to his reappearance again.

It was fundamental to the rebuilding of his ego after a previous grave defeat to Neji you see.

"Rumors of my demise…" Naruto said amid the spirited populace, "…Have been greatly exaggerated."

"Nobody thought you were dead." Kisara pointed out, holding her head as it still swam from Ino's poisoning, "Idiot."

Well that took the wind out of his sails. Looking around at everyone else to see if that sentiment was unanimous, he pouted until he saw Matsui's flag, "What the hell is a Shade Alliance?"

Looking down at Kenichi all he got was a confused shrug. As if he knew. They'd both been gone for quite a while, and to be honest, when Kenichi had arrived he hadn't really cared too much about what was going on. All he knew was that he saw Miu in combat against two enemies and leapt into the fray to assist.

Speaking of which, what happened to the second guy with the sunglasses and the apparent problem with letting sunlight touch his skin?

"Seriously. I was only gone for like a week." Naruto muttered under his breath, rubbing his head as he took stock of everyone there, "Why are Kisara, Thor, and the Siegfried guy that Kenichi beat here?"

Someone needed to catch him up on exactly what was up in town. He couldn't have been gone for that long.

"Another victory for the most influential fighter group in town!" Niijima crowed proudly, "Consider yourselves fortunate to be a part of this growing enterprise!"

"Oi! That didn't answer my question at all!"

Miu just shook her head and smiled, "Welcome back you two."

XxX

(Later That Evening – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

"…And then after I woke up I spent the week in the mountains. You know; healing and doing… other stuff." Naruto said, drawing his explanation about where he'd been all that time to a close. He would leave out just what he learned. One jutsu in particular. He didn't like thinking about it, "When I fell into the river my phone didn't make it, so I couldn't really call anyone. There probably wasn't any reception out there anyway."

His explanation sated most of the other masters, save for Shigure, who sat off in the corner of the room polishing her sword while staring at him. It would probably be best to avoid finding himself alone with her for at least two months.

"Hmm." Akisame pondered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "Well there's just no telling what you spent the week doing is there? Either way, it's nice to see you in good health." He then had his attention drawn to the bandages on Naruto's body and arm and the brace on his elbow, "Well, mostly good health."

Jiraiya's jutsu training aggravated his internal injuries and screwed up his arm in two separate incidents. Thank goodness he apparently healed so fast. He was wearing that stuff for safety now more than anything else.

"Of course he's in good health!" Sakaki bellowed and laughed, slapping Naruto on the back as he spilled beer from his can, "Spending all week vacationing up in the mountains? Sounds like a blast!" He then found his jacked sides grabbed by Naruto who gave him a haunted look.

"I had my heart stop six times on that mountain. I think I saw hell." Naruto said in a hollow voice, face-to-face with the brawling master, "Don't tell me I had a vacation."

"…Brat, unless you want to see if an aluminum can is edible, don't stain the leather." Warning presented, Naruto let go of Sakaki's jacket and sat back down, "That's better."

At that point, Kenichi walked into the room, his wounds dressed and tended to by Ma Kensei who entered along with him, "Well it looks like our disciple had his first brush with a real weapon-user and came out on top."

"Don't forget Kenichi's first fight with Satsujinken fighter, apa!" Apachai added cheerfully, grabbing Kenichi by his injured shoulder to hold him in place until Kensei freed their common disciple from his grip, "He didn't die!"

"Of course I didn't die!" Kenichi felt a bit affronted, "W-What did I spend all of that time in the mountains for if everybody just thought I was going to get killed by these guys?"

Everyone hadn't really been referring to that. What they were glad he survived more than anything else was his training with Hayato who was mysteriously nowhere to be found. Probably off making sure that Miu hadn't slacked in her training while he'd been absent.

"Well…" Akisame said, a bit sheepishly despite the astute air about him, "There was always a chance you would die during the fighting. After all, you were fighting an opponent that was completely willing to take your life if you weren't skilled enough to win."

"And he had those ninja claw things." Sakaki added before setting his beer on top of Naruto's head to balance it, "What are those things called Shigure?" Still no answer from the woman who was staring dead at Naruto and shining the deadly steel of her sword, "Right… kid? You know what they were?"

"Tekagi-shuko." Naruto said, carefully taking the beverage off of his head. It felt like any sudden mood would set Shigure after him. Even her pet mouse was getting in on the staredown action, "Yeah, Kiba cut a lot of people up in that truck lot didn't he? And Miu beat up Ino."

He didn't think that they'd wind up sending genin that he'd actually known before he was kicked out. They were still alive, but Shikamaru and Tenten were able to get them deported. Possession of illegal weapons while in Japan on tourist visas, _and_ their identification despite being thorough had been fake. Ahh bureaucracy.

They were now waiting to leave the country in cells, and they were officially out of their hair. When they were sent away they wouldn't be able to so much as take a bus across a border for the next few years without getting thrown away. They had been effectively neutralized as it were.

Shino had been neutralized as well, in a more… permanent way. Poor bastard.

It would probably be for the best that his particular end never really became common knowledge amongst their base of friends. It had been quite a distance away, over a mile, so no one saw the body before leaving or even found out about it.

Good.

Shikamaru was fringe enough as it was when it came to Naruto's allies. It was an accident, true, but as far as it went for people like him, Naruto, and Tenten, the way Shino died was an unfortunate means to an end.

It was still rather callous though, to leave him without a word even though it was the only thing they could do at the time. Both Naruto and Shikamaru would admit so if it ever came out and they were asked about it. The two of them sort of grew up with the guy.

So that just left Neji.

_(Flashback – Two Hours Ago – Weighing Station)_

_Naruto and Neji stood against one another, neither moving a hair. _

"_Hesitant to make a move are you?" Neji asked, eyes narrowing challengingly as a smirk formed on his face, "I don't blame you after the last time. It's only natural for you to be a little apprehensive."_

_Naruto's fists tightened harshly, "I'm not afraid!"_

"_I didn't say you were. Those were your words, not mine."_

_This f'n guy…_

_It wasn't that Naruto was scared to fight. It was just that it didn't feel right. His heart wasn't in the battle. There were too many things up in the air for him. For the both of them actually. He could see that Neji wasn't spoiling as badly for a fight as he had been during their first encounter._

_It wasn't that Neji had developed a 'been there done that' attitude. He really felt the same. He still wanted to kill Naruto, but something about doing it then and there felt wrong. He had also promised that he would speak with Hinata as well. Something about deceiving her in such a manner didn't sit well with him._

_From the corner of his eye a very good stretch of distance away, Neji could see two specs barreling down the side of a rather steep hill in the direction of the open highway. One of them was Shino. The other he didn't know._

_The scrum ended up directly on the road and-._

…_What a horrid way to go._

_Naruto saw it as well. He had followed Neji's eyes, and from the clear view of the road that they had he could cringe at what he saw as a human being getting hit by a truck._

_And that settled it. Neji shut his eyes and took a deep breath in a moment of silent contemplation and respect. He didn't know Shino very well. He doubted anyone on the team really had despite being in his class. But all the same, they were comrades in the life that they led._

_He died in battle._

"_That's how quickly it can end." Neji said, getting Naruto's attention once more, "That could have been any of us. If you hadn't escaped the last time, it never would have happened because it would be your life that ended already. I was not mocking you. Instead, I was simply stating that having already faced your own mortality you would understand already just what you were putting on the line."_

_Kiba, Ino, and Shino were genin. Rookie genin. They had graduated, true. Kiba had killed more enemies than Neji had as a matter of fact. But they hadn't truly come face-to-face with the stark reality of their own mortality. He doubted that they understood just what it meant to put one's life on the line. They had never really had to stare down the prospect of dying. They had never been pushed that far._

_For those that had been, there was a certain sort of solemn detachment that one came to hold in regard to risking one's life. A devil-may-care air about it, but behind it also there was also a solemn acceptance that in the grand scheme of things it would always loom about. You were just as likely to die at any given point in the day as to let your next breath go._

_It was in a way liberating to realize such a thing. If you could get over the creeping paranoia that filled your heart every second of every day at first when you thought of this, it became nothing more than a passing thought in the back of your mind, just a gentle reminder that your next moment wasn't promised._

_With that also came a desire to fight tooth and nail for your life whenever it was in true peril._

_Neji had that. From the look in Naruto's eyes, he had it too. How a boy that wasn't even a true ninja could have such a thing, Neji didn't know. But in this one moment the two of them at least had some measure of an understanding. They didn't need to speak to come to their next agreement. They needed to do so however in order to work out the terms of the unsaid agreement._

"_When?" Naruto asked seriously, "Where?"_

_Neji just opened his eyes. A fleeting sense of respect was reflected in his pale eyes from the last burning orange flecks of the setting sun. He wondered if it had meant anything at all to Shino when he'd seen it before… before the fight that ended his life._

_Well tonight it would mean something to one of them._

_It would mean something to the one of them that didn't survive the night to see the sun ever again._

(End Flashback)

Naruto's eyes panned to the clock and then around the room, taking note of every denizen of Ryouzanpaku that was there and even the ones that were conspicuous by their absence at that moment.

Koetsuji Akisame. The crazy bastard with his crazy machines, with his crazy medicine that hurt like hell but actually worked better than the stuff at the hospitals. There was something weird about him aside from how he seemed to be good at everything but maybe genius types were like that. He was still a good person.

Ma Kensei. Pervert. Outright pervert. Outstanding pervert. The times Naruto saw him without a camera in his hand trying to photograph the boobs and up the skirts of hot women (Shigure and Miu) or reading dirty books and magazines numbered less than the amount of times he saw him with one or the other. He was still awesome though. And at least it sort of prepared him for Jiraiya's next-level quirks.

Sakaki Shio. Drunk. Angry, violent drunk with an ego that made Naruto feel humble in comparison. He was still probably Naruto's favorite angry, violent drunk that he'd ever meet though. He had Naruto's respect full bore after Chinatown, and he felt like it brought them together. His new favorite game as a matter of fact had become to see how much he could mess with Sakaki without getting himself propelled through a solid surface.

Hopachai Apachai. Yes, he maimed Naruto and gave him his first true brush with death. That aside, Naruto couldn't bring himself to dislike the gentle giant. It was water under the bridge, and since actually getting to know Apachai, he was a big-hearted person. Gullible as all hell and more like a kid than an adult more often than not, but that just made him earnest and one of the Ryouzanpaku masters that Naruto actually trusted the most.

Fuurinji Hayato. That scary old man. He was still just completely frightening. But it was clear from every interaction that they'd ever had after actually becoming somewhat cordial that the man had always held back against him as much as humanly possible for someone that strong. Thanks for that.

Fuurinji Miu. Naruto's former worst enemy in a way, or rival might have been more appropriate. One or the other, but then how could you hate someone that goddamn sweet? He just couldn't. This was the person outside of his ninja allies that he felt the most natural camaraderie with. He didn't know much about her background, and he could only wonder how much she knew about his, but he believed that they understood more about each other than others their age would. Despite the different disciplines and cultures they were both raised to fight.

Shirahama Kenichi. The best friend. Basically the conscience and the limiter to every ultra-dynamic and would-be wild action he'd pondered aloud since the second year of middle school. There wasn't anyone kinder, and finally he was turning things around for himself, growing stronger as a martial artist. Speaking of the Shirahama family, he wished that it hadn't been too late or too random for him to stop in and see Honoka. If he was going to give his last hurrah, he wanted to at least give his goodbyes in his own way to 'Tidbit'. Oh well.

Ugh, there were just so many when he thought about it. More important people than he thought he had. All of the jerk friends he'd met over the last few months like Takeda and Ukita. Ugh, _maybe_ Niijima. But you'd have to hold his testicles at gunpoint to make him admit that he didn't entirely abhor that guy.

Hell, even some of the Ragnarok guys were fine with him. Thor was an alright guy after they'd fought and even when they'd talked following the battle at the truck depot. His sideburns also destroyed all. Kisara was alright when you got used to the prickly personality, and he'd never even had it out once and for all with Kaname… err… Freya.

Damn it, he'd never even gotten the chance to pop back out to Yokohama's Chinatown and hang out with Renka like he thought he'd have gotten the chance to.

And then there was the woman that had refined his weapon technique. Kousaka Shigure.

With nothing more than a deep sigh as warning, Naruto stood up and walked directly through the masters seated around the main room of their quarters and over to Shigure in the corner who stood up when she saw him coming.

No hesitation, no stopping or trying to break the ice with awkward small-talk. He simply put his arms around her torso in a tight hug that no one saw in the room coming.

"I'm sorry for making you worry." Naruto said, actually amazed that she allowed him to place the hug onto him without ringing his skull or cutting his clothes to ribbons for punishment, either for the act of hugging her to begin with or the stress and worry that he'd placed on her from his little vanishing act, "I could say I didn't mean to, or whatever, but... just sorry, alright?"

Naruto despised apologizing, and he never would have done so if he hadn't felt it was important to. If he hadn't felt that the person he was apologizing to was important enough to even say it to. But she was. They were. Whether he liked it or not. Whether he would ever be willing to admit it to a single one of the Ryouzanpaku adults or not.

By the grace of divine intervention or whatever coincidence anyone privy to the details wanted to use, Konoha had presented him with a mission to take on Ryouzanpaku instead of any other assignment they could have used to get the desired result of casting him out of their world. He had launched into it with gusto, and he'd never quit despite failing more times than any ninja had any right to fail a mission and survive the results.

Had it been any other impossible assignment set against any other force on this Earth, he would have been killed. He wouldn't even have seen the age of _thir_teen, let alone fifteen or sixteen.

"I know I'm a huge pain in the ass." Naruto continued, setting the side of his head on her shoulder, "To you, hell, probably to everybody here somehow. But you guys… thank you. If I'd never met any of you, I don't know what I'd be or even if I'd be."

For better or for worse, and it was usually for worse in his opinion, they made him the person that he was. They'd traumatized him repeatedly and scarred his body, but by virtue of constantly braving the dangers that they posed and choosing to face them down they crystallized certain sets of beliefs in him that he would never allow to die before his body did.

Kenichi seemed amazed at the extremely brazen action, and then confused by Naruto's words in the aftermath of them.

'Wow.' He'd never seen his best friend like this before, 'Did what I said in the valley really get to him that much?' It didn't seem that likely, but maybe so. Naruto did have a good heart. It was why they were friends.

One of Shigure's hands came up slowly and hesitantly, appearing to the others that she was going to smack Naruto's head for acting either strange or dumb. But instead she just set it gently on the side of his head and rubbed it, "Make sure you… show up tomorrow. No more missing training." She said, slowly and deliberately as was her method.

Naruto felt as if hot tears were beginning to prick at his eyes, but he masked it behind a trademark squinty-eyed grin as he backed away, throwing his hands up behind his neck as he reverse-strode for the door and his shoes, "Heh… definitely. There's no chance I'm missing tomorrow after being gone for a week already. Who d'ya think I am?"

Turning around to put his footwear on at the entrance, he put his goggles down over his eyes just in case something from his eyes slipped free and he was seen. Without saying a word or turning back around, Naruto opened the door, waved half-heartedly over his shoulder while throwing on his backpack, and left.

No 'see you later', no 'until tomorrow', nothing. All of that had been extremely strange to Kenichi. Naruto was a weird guy, but that was odd even by his standards.

"Damn." Kensei said quite a while after Naruto had left the room, "I wish that would have been sexier. How can I take a decent picture of something like that?"

"Ma Kensei…" Shigure said slowly and threateningly, brandishing her sword before cutting at him without warning. The chase was on, and just like that everything seemed to be back to normal to Kenichi as everyone got back to what they normally did in their leisure time.

XxX

Naruto didn't bother using the massive gates of Ryouzanpaku to exit the premises, instead using his old standby of leaping onto and over the wall surrounding the property. Just like old times back when he wasn't allowed inside without stealth or a fight. Man had things changed.

His feet touched the pavement and he set off, destination fully in mind, 'It's almost midnight. So I've got over an hour to get there. Good. Plenty of time.'

As late at night as it was, by 1 am he had somewhere he needed to be. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. He was going to show his face, and he wasn't going to be late.

A few steps down the road and he stopped upon hearing the patting sound of loose slippers on the street. Great. So someone wasn't going to let him go and do his thing free and clear after all. He thought he'd sold it well enough back in the common area to at least buy him tonight to finish his business.

Standing behind him in a short yellow pajama blouse that stopped at her thighs with paw-print designs on them was Miu. Her hair was devoid of the twin clips that she kept on the sides, signifying how late it was. Why couldn't she have just gone to bed or something? The only reason Kenichi had still been up was so his wounds could be dressed properly to keep from leaving any scarring.

"I don't get it." Miu said quietly, "Aren't we friends? Isn't everyone here a friend? Why do this alone?"

"I'd love to fight battles with my friends." Naruto replied, "…Just so long as they were _our_ battles. Together. This isn't. None of you have anything to do with this." He said resolutely. Choosing to make it yours still didn't make it yours, "…How'd you even figure it out? Nobody else did." If they did, not a soul called him out on it. He was sure that out of Ryozanpaku's masters, at least Shigure knew.

"At the depot." Miu began to say, "When you were smiling, laughing, and talking with everyone, with us, it wasn't happy."

The surprise on his face when he first appeared, it hadn't been because of Kenichi's victory. It had been because of the sheer scope of how many people were hurt before Kenichi's victory. It was a smile that was pasted on, as if he told himself to grin and bear it. To smile like he meant it to mask the frown and his true intentions.

Due to the fact that his back was turned, he couldn't see the effect that thinking of all of this had on Miu's expression. "Why do you try to hide so many things from us?"

"It's not that I'm hiding anything." Naruto said again when he could hear the trouble in her voice, "It's just that saying everything is hard. It feels easier to leave things out, you know?"

Things were hard for him to feel comfortable revealing. And if he did reveal some things it would make certain people targets. The masters he didn't worry about. It was everyone else he was concerned with.

She and Kenichi, all the rest of his friends, they could all say that they were in for a penny, in for a pound all they wanted to. It didn't change a thing about it. If they were targets, by all means, fight back. They would already be in danger to begin with, so what was the harm in that? But only one that was wanted was him, and everyone else was spilling blood because of what? For him?

"Miu-chan…" Naruto said, slowly turning around to face her as he pulled his goggles back up. The least he could do was look someone in the eyes at a time like this, "Do you want to know the thing I remember most about my mom? It's what she said to me the day they first left me on that island. She told me, 'No matter what happens don't ever let them change who you are.'"

"I don't understand." No one was trying to change anything.

"Who I am, I fight." Naruto said simply with a shrug, "I don't always do it the way the rest of you do and I don't always win, you know that, but I don't ever quit."

"No one said anything about quitting." Miu replied, fists tightly grabbing at the bottom of her blouse, "Don't try to throw your life away just to prove a point or look cool. There's still more we can do. Just wait."

"There's still a lot of stuff I haven't done." Naruto told her with a chuckle, "I still haven't kissed a girl before, I still suck at playing guitar, and I'm _still_ not a kage yet. And you think I'm going out there to die? I'm just going out there to finish this."

And if 'finishing this' meant that he did die, well those were the breaks.

"I can't let you." Miu said, lifting her left leg and putting her arms into her Hybrid Martial Arts fighting stance, "Not like this. It's not smart. If you want to go you have to beat me."

"I don't have to do anything." He pointed over his shoulder behind him, "You're not in my way."

"I'll chase you and stop you."

"Not in a nightgown you can't. You know I'll just ditch you and get away."

"Naruto-kun stop it! This is stupid!"

"I know it is!" Naruto rebutted, pulling the goggles off of his face to look her dead in the eyes. Miu recoiled in surprise at him actually realizing the high-stakes of the situation enough to make eye contact. His normal nature wouldn't suggest it, but the look in his intense blue eyes cut that down, "You were at that lot. Do you think I was just ignoring all of that blood? All of those people that were lying around hurt because this got out of control?"

"Just come back to the dojo." Miu said, trying to smile and reason with Naruto. Anything. Anything to keep him from leaving. He'd already tangled with Neji once, and from what he described only dumb luck saved his life the first time. How much better could he have gotten in a week's time? It wasn't realistic, "Okay? Come on. We can talk about it, we can make a plan with Shikamaru-san. We've got friends that can help."

Just as long as he didn't do it alone. He wasn't alone. After everything, she was able to easily recognize that he was her first friend. Before she met Kenichi she and Naruto had been friends. It had been a weird friendship, with more fighting than actual moments of familiarity, but the two had cared before actually finding a common bonding point in Kenichi.

That was the problem that they'd presented when all of this started spiraling out of hand. That didn't sit easy with Naruto in the slightest. Neji's hit squad had come to town looking for him, looking to kill him. Takeda had been hurt badly by Kiba. Kisara and Ukita had almost been poisoned to a fatal degree on separate occasions by Ino.

Kenichi and Miu had to fight those two people that would have killed them if they'd been given the chance.

Shikamaru, who never wanted any part of being a ninja ever again had to fight, and it had resulted in him indirectly killing someone.

So many other people with absolutely no stake in this had been hurt; people that didn't know the first thing about what was going on. As if he was supposed to value his single life over that of many others, many of whom were friends.

Naruto just shook his head in response to her offer, "Not gonna do that." He and Neji both wanted this to end tonight, "If this doesn't stop here and now he'll just get a new team and this'll start all over again."

It was becoming plain to see that there wasn't any argument Miu could make banking on logic that would convince Naruto to think better of his pending actions. She didn't know why, but there was just something about all of this that ate at her.

She felt that if she just let him go, something terrible would happen one way or another.

"This is happening because I made a lot of mistakes." Naruto admitted, taking no joy in doing such, "I'm still making mistakes. I'm probably about to make another one right now. If all it'll take to clean it up is me sticking my head out, whatever. Now goodbye."

With that, he turned around and began to walk away again.

"You mean 'until tomorrow' right?" Miu asked after a few moments of watching Naruto's retreating back, "You'll be here tomorrow morning won't you?"

She received no answer from Naruto, who stopped walking for a split-second prior to continuing on. He didn't turn or divert his steps again as his figure got smaller and smaller on the street. Despite her state of dress she was ready to go after him and follow through with what she told him she'd do, at least until a massive hand rested on her shoulder.

As Miu turned her head and looked up at her grandfather Hayato, her eyes widened in shock at his interference as they started to well up with tears, "But why?"

"Because he'd never forgive you if you tried to stop him." Miu wrapped her arms around him as a gesture of comfort for herself, and it was one Hayato returned for her sake. It didn't take long at all for waterworks to stain the front of his robe.

If she had cried in front of him, Naruto would have broken. She had to have known that much. All it would have taken for her to stop him would have been tears, and he would have caved in quicker than a limestone sinkhole.

She held off on doing so however, showing no real weakness until right then. Miu probably already knew how deep for Naruto this ran, which was why she didn't allow herself to show that much vulnerability in front of him,

"Sometimes…" Hayato said as a measure of explaining, "…In a search to really find and understand one's self, people need to handle things themselves. He's young, and his inherent worldview has finally been forced to shift drastically. As of now, he just wants to end things of his own accord, as the first act of the rest of his life."

Or the last.

Naruto had been yoked in one fashion or another to the ninja clan of Konohagakure for his entire life. To finally sever the last tie restraining him, it was something that he had to do himself. Good intentions were fine, and he even understood how much others cared. For that he was grateful, but no one had the right to step in now of their own accord.

Young as he was, this was the act of an independent shinobi.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Elsewhere in Town)

Much to Hinata's delight, Neji had come back just as he'd promised and the two of them walked together through the streets of town. She had tried to argue her case, of why this didn't need to happen, and Neji offered no rebuttal.

"Yes, I see where you are coming from Hinata-sama."

All of his answers seemed to revolve around that general sentiment, and it instilled confidence in her that this could be salvaged. She knew not of the fate of Shino, but she was aware that Ino and Kiba were in the custody of the proper officials. Nothing else had to happen.

Eventually she heard the familiar sounds of trains in the direction that they were going in, "Neji-niisan, where are you taking us?" Hinata was aware that they were in the vicinity of the train station. Well aware. She just wanted to hear it from him.

They stopped just long enough at the ticket counter for her heart to swell, "Two please, for the upcoming transit to Tokyo."

"Sure." The ticket man said, smiling as he accepted Neji's money and handed over the stubs to the Hyuuga pair, "You're just in time. This is the last one running until tomorrow morning. Have a good night." He bid them as Neji smiled, nodded and led Hinata onward.

Hinata managed to slip her hand into Neji's as they made their way up the steps to the train platform, "Two tickets? T-To Tokyo?"

"They're to send us home."

As they were within distance of the train to hear it hum, Hinata felt Neji hand her off to an attendant to help her onboard, "I'm so happy. This is the best choice, I know it is."

"Go ahead and lead us to our seats since you're on first." Neji said to her as she heard a ticket scanner used by the attendant that had helped her beep, "I will be right behind you." She gave him a brilliant smile as she looked back and went off to do just that.

"You just caught this train son." The attendant said, "This thing takes off in a few seconds." He prepared to scan Neji's second ticket only for him to hand the first over and leave without the second being cleared, "What are you doing?"

"Take care of her for me until the train reaches Tokyo." Neji said as he walked away from the train. The man wanted to go and stop him, but it was his job to ride along and he had no choice but to hurry aboard as the last warning for takeoff was sounding out over the PA.

He walked far enough away to turn and calmly watch the Shinkasen depart swiftly down the tracks. With Hinata onboard. Without him. He hated doing that to her, but this wasn't just about her any longer, "If you hate me for this I'll deal with it when it comes. Just know that I do love you."

Whether she liked it or not he needed to continue on, not for Konoha's directives any longer, but for himself. It just so happened that those two interests coincided.

The lights on the now empty platform began to shut off as the automatic voice on the PA blared to no one but him that they station was closed and would reopen tomorrow at 5:30 am. Only then did Neji turn and descend the stairs, deciding to make a quick stop back at the ticket desk before the man there left as well, "Hello."

Neji's greeting startled the adult male who seemed to be prepared to close up and leave, "You again?" The ticket man said with a raised eyebrow, "So soon? What do you need son?"

Neji presented the second ticket stub with a serious, hardened look on his face, "I was wondering if I could exchange this for the first train out to Tokyo tomorrow morning. Would that be alright?"

The man nodded and took the stub to go through with the transaction. Neji had technically missed it and shouldn't have been able to do so, but what the hell? It was late, he was a kid, and he was polite, "Can I ask what changed? The young lady you had with you made it on didn't she?" Hinata wasn't with him this time.

"Oh, yes." Neji confirmed for him, "She'll be heading home tonight. It's just that I still have something I need to attend to before I can go home. It shouldn't take too much longer."

XxX

(Naruto's House)

It had been hours since Shikamaru and Tenten had headed home following Shikamaru's fatal battle with Shino. He had never killed anyone before, and even though he hadn't done it directly himself it was still his actions that led to it happening.

After all the time that had passed, he was now at the point of trying to keep himself awake at all costs to fend off the first nightmare that he was more than certain he was going to have that very night. There were only so many games Naruto had in his house, and he could only occupy himself by playing himself for so long.

Footsteps didn't exist inside of that house, but Tenten descended the stairs in her pajamas with her brown hair out of her buns to look into the living room and find Shikamaru just sitting there on the main couch, playing himself in shogi of all things.

He would take a turn on one side after seemingly an eternity of 'deducing' a move, and would spin the board to the other side to repeat the process for the other.

Making her way into the room, she plopped down on the three-person couch at the opposite end from Shikamaru and shifted her feet up onto the cushion underneath her, observing him for several minutes, just playing himself in the dead silence and tranquility of the house, "That game's supposed to be more fun with two people."

The click of another piece being moved sounded out in the silent room.

"Well technically I'm the only person I've ever played that can beat myself." Ha, so he still had a sense of humor and a hellishly sharp wit, injured leg notwithstanding. Around the knee that Shino had damaged during their fight he had it wrapped heavily to protect it while it healed. It wasn't so bad, but it would be weak for a week or so.

Tenten shook her head and reached for the remote on the table in front of them to turn on the TV and break the tranquility. Channel after channel, and there was nothing on. Nothing worth watching. She knew that already.

It was too late to train safely. Sleep was much more appealing at that late hour than trying to keep herself awake just because. But sleep wasn't going to be on the table. Not tonight.

She just looked at the dreck on late-night TV before shutting the set back off the way that she'd found it. She and Shikamaru just sat in silence, him still trying to play a two-person game against no one.

CLICK

Her eyes shot up to the clock and took in the time. 12:36 at night, "…Naruto's not coming back tonight is he?"

Shikamaru didn't even look up. He just kept contemplating his moves on both sides of the board, "Probably not."

CLICK

"Is he coming back at all?"

"…You know I don't have the answer to that." The pain in his voice wasn't from the injury he'd gotten. Why did girls have to ask so many questions? He didn't want to have to talk about that crap, "…Troublesome woman."

Tenten rolled her eyes and scooted across the couch to set her head on his shoulder, "Just shut up for once would you?"

XxX

(With Naruto – Freight Docks)

"12:59. One minute to go." Naruto said quietly to himself as he sat down just outside of the gates of the darkness. There wasn't anything else he could do to prepare more than he already had. He'd checked his equipment in his bag, checked it twice even.

None of his clothes would make trouble for him during the fight by letting off a stray ruffling sound. He remembered every second of his last fight with Neji, and he would not be making the same mistakes twice. If Neji beat him again he would have to do it in a completely new way this time.

Standing up from the ground, Naruto shook his limbs out to make sure nothing was stiff. He needed to be loose, warmed up.

The disposable plastic watch around his wrist beeped with the turning of the hour, and Naruto wasted no time jumping the fence and sprinting across the paved grounds in the dark without a footstep sounding out despite the rapid moving of his feet.

The only light available would be from the moon in the few moments where it would find a way to peek out from behind the clouds.

From how pitch-black the docks were at this time of night it was effectively a yamikeigo. The irony was not lost on him. He'd maimed one Hyuuga in one of these duels to initiate all of this, and apparently it was all coming full-circle.

Naruto heard the rustle of clothing somewhere in the yard and hurled a quick shuriken he'd been palming in order to test if he was hearing ghosts or not. He was not, because he heard the path of the figure shift after the shuriken hit a solid surface to spook them.

Spook them right in his direction.

Sliding to a stop to avert his own path, Naruto saw a dull shock of white pass by his eyes in the dark and knew it was Neji. Neji would remain true to his Baguazhang principles of circling. Naruto threw his body directly back and turned to his right to intercept Neji's movements and the two of them wound up clashing in a quick flurry of attacks.

With every swooping palm strike that Neji attempted he kept trying to move around Naruto as he did so, only for Naruto to move counter to him and keep them in front of one another. Neji finally caught one of Naruto's punches in his palm and tried to twist at the wrist to break Naruto's.

Naruto rolled with the violent twist and rolled his body through the air to prevent this from happening. Landing low, Naruto swept at Neji's legs with his hands only for Neji to side-move out of the way to Naruto's back where he was primed to strike at the base of his neck.

Naruto rolled his body forward this time, positioning himself on his forehead and delivering a double back kick to Neji's head that almost smashed him in the face before Neji could deliver a killing blow. Upon missing, Naruto rolled the rest of the way forward and retook his feet, once again using his footwork to keep Neji from circling around again. If they had been in the light the motion could be compared to a dog trying to chase its own tail.

"Oho." Neji commented. Someone had gotten more used to that sort of movement. It seemed more natural for Naruto now, "So I see."

Naruto grinned in the dark before turning and actually running away from Neji who was hot in pursuit.

As they kept things going, Naruto felt a sharp wind brushing at the back of his neck, getting closer and closer until he finally drew a kunai and turned back around to clash kunai knives with his enemy. He could make out Neji's form despite the darkened environment despite having not trained in pitch-black for years. You didn't lose that kind of skill.

It was just like riding a bike.

At night.

With no streetlights.

Against traffic that was trying to kill you.

Neji worked his kunai around and disarmed Naruto, losing his own weapon in the process but seamlessly shifting into extending his body forward in a momentum-guided palm strike that planted upside-down right in Naruto's chest, "Shouteiuchi (Palm Bottom Strike)!"

Naruto stumbled away, holding back a cough from taking the blow, but noted that Neji hadn't tried to follow up. Smart. Naruto had a counter prepared for him if he had.

"Uzumaki-san, has anyone ever told you the definition of insanity?" Neji asked curiously, slowly walking around in a cresting motion back and forth as Naruto observed him in the dark, "Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting a difference in result."

"That's crazy." Naruto replied, wondering where he was going with all of this.

"Exactly." He couldn't see it, but he was certain that Neji was smiling, "Someone told me this a long time ago, and I didn't see it at first until I really started looking around. Everywhere you look, you can see everyone doing the same exact thing no matter what their position in life, but they somehow believe that somehow this time it will all be different. There's nothing that can change it though. This is fate."

Again with the fate. You made your own fate. You could change whatever you wanted if you had enough on your side to do so, "There's no such thing. I'm not gonna start thinking that everything that's happened to us is because it was written before any of us ever made any of the choices we did."

"Our choices weren't really choices at all you see." Neji said, and he had a bit of a point in that regard, "The thing is, I've already killed you once. And I know for a fact I'm not insane." Neji continued before abruptly and suddenly resetting the cadence of his speech to a reset curiosity, "…Uzumaki-san, has anyone ever told you the definition of insanity?"

Before Naruto could aptly react, Neji's strategy shifted radically to an aggressive style of attacking. Crashing instead of flowing.

Short, rolling palms instead of the longer ones that would come straight and looping. This was an entirely different Hyuuga Neji, and this wasn't Baguazhang. Not the way he was moving. For every palm Naruto blocked, two landed somewhere.

They weren't as hard as the Baguazhang shots, but with the amount he was landing, they were making up for the lack of power that he sacrificed, 'I! Hate! Blocking!' Naruto shifted his defense to a high guard, holding his hand up behind his ear to cover his vitals with his elbow and bicep before leaning in to knock Neji out of his attack with his shoulder.

He could taste the blood welling back up in his throat, but not as dramatically fast as the last time Neji had fought him. It did mean that his internals were breaking down again though. Not good. He'd been healing so fast, and Jiraiya messed him back up again to teach him a jutsu.

"You're bleeding." Neji commented, feeling the warm feeling of blood from Naruto's mouth set on the back of his hand, "Did you not have enough time to recover?"

"I was training to fight you." Naruto admitted, trying to will away his injuries, 'Damn it Ero-sennin… stupid jutsu, stupid defibrillator. Who does that?' "What kind of kung fu was that? That wasn't taijutsu, and that wasn't that Baguazhang stuff you kicked my ass with the first time."

"I told you." Neji said, "The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. However, there is something to be said for the human capacity to adapt. Like you. You adapted to my method of circular movement with your… what did you call it, Maruyoudou (Circle Feint)? It's clearly improved well enough that had I remained in use of my own stepping method we would have stalemated."

That much had been clear from their earlier standoff at the start of the fight.

"Luckily I didn't have to use my knowledge of Fanziquan to defeat you in that first fight."

He'd been hiding a second style?

"Now…"

Neji had no qualms about coming straight for Naruto this time instead of going the roundabout way of circling him. Naruto turned around and gave him his back, simultaneously bending his legs to take off for his reverse flip kick, "Sorasake Keru (Sky Tearing Kick)!"

The kick missed upon Neji's dodging, but in midair Naruto threw two shuriken with both hands, one of which actually wounded Neji, "Tch." It didn't deter him from pressing forward to meet Naruto upon landing, "Insanity." He remarked tauntingly before striking with the exact same technique he used to gravely wound Naruto the first time they fought, "Hakke Hashirahakai (Eight Trigrams Pillar Destruction)!"

Trying to strike out at both of Naruto's sides with curving palms he found them blocked by Naruto's arms, holding them up in a high guard with his torso scrunched. In the same breath, Naruto lowered his arms inside of Neji's and used his open hands to smack Neji hard on the ears, "Happa Ken (Eight Leaf Fist)!" The disoriented Hyuuga was a sitting duck for the follow-up of Naruto grabbing his earlobes and pulling himself forward, "Kikaku Ken (Demon Horn Fist)!"

To headbutt Neji right in the face.

Blood spilled down his face from a cut that opened up on the bridge of his nose. The back of his head never touched the ground. Holding his nose, Neji immediately backpedaled and scooted back on the ground until he got back up. He had to face a stark reality.

He still had no idea of Naruto's taijutsu nature.

The first time they'd fought it never mattered. But right then in that last encounter, Naruto had exhibited at least three of the 16 Hidden Fists of taijutsu movement. The kick; the Tobi Geri method of leaping and diving kicks, The open-handed slap attack; Happa Ken, and the headbutt; Kikaku Ken.

He didn't focus on anything in particular, but he seemed capable of using most of the 16 Hidden Fists in some capacity. Unlike Kiba and Shino who focused in on their respective favored methods, Naruto didn't seem to favor anything.

Naruto had yet to use a ninjutsu. The Metsubushi would serve no purpose since they were already in the dark. There was nothing to try and Kawarimi with that he could actually sell Neji on and get away with it.

Neji wiped the blood from his face and spit onto the ground, seething in anger. He hated this boy, "One."

"What?"

Blazing forward, Neji slammed a palm out that passed by Naruto's head as he dodged it. He blocked the second that was aimed at his stomach, but that still left the first that he thought he had defended against as a trap. The hand curved and descended downward to strike Naruto hard on the point of the shoulder.

"Two." With Naruto's arm disabled from the strike he didn't know which of Neji's hands to defend against, leaving him vulnerable for a second blow to the back of his shoulder blade on the disabled side to spin him around, "Three! Four!" As he spun, Neji struck him twice more, and these weren't random strikes. He was waiting for particular moments in Naruto's single rotation to hit him.

"Five! Six! Seven! Eight!" Neji said, bombarding Naruto with heavy shots. A sharp contrast to his normal style, "Zesshou: Hachiten Hougeki (Last Resort: Eight Points Crumbling Attack)!"

Naruto was knocked far away, as if he'd been hit by a car. He landed on his feet, but his body sank against the aluminum wall of a building, 'There's no way.' Every single blow was perfectly aimed, even in the dark.

"I see that I was mistaken." Neji said, able to locate Naruto easily despite the difficulty of vision, "You lack a very important ability as a person that did not graduate to become a genin. When you accepted my challenge so easily I assumed that you had developed it well enough to battle against me in the dark. How unfortunate."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Was he talking about some 'see-in-the-dark' crap? Naruto had been dueling with shadows the entire fight and Neji could find him just fine?

"It doesn't matter." As if he was going to explain a portion of Konoha's final training to him, "You've been straining your five senses as hard as you could just to keep up with me this entire time. That's actually commendable. It's over now though."

"…Shut up." Naruto said to Neji, reaching into his backpack and grabbing something that he threw onto the ground, forcing it to burst with a loud pop noise and a blinding flash. In the same move, Naruto pulled out a lit firework and shot a comet shell fireball straight at Neji who dodged it, "Suiseikai (Comet Shell)!"

He wasn't fighting Neji to do well and gain some sort of acknowledgment before dying. He was fighting Neji to win! If he had to bust out Chinatown fireworks he would.

"Hakkeshou Kaiten (Eight Trigrams Palms Rotating Heaven)!" Neji spun through the attack as quick as lightning, and protected/blocked with the back portion of his palm that most would use for chops. Concluding the rotation, he strode forward and struck out with an extensively long attack, using his index and middle fingers to hit Naruto straight on in the center of his chest, "Hm."

Naruto just inhaled deeply and clutched at Neji's wrist with one hand, lifting his fingers with the other into a half-ram seal much to Neji's horror as it dawned on him that Naruto was going to try a jutsu. He lashed out with a strike, but it was for naught.

Because Naruto's body went limp and collapsed onto the ground before he could hit him. His palm struck and dented deeply into the wall. At his feet, Naruto lay face down, unmoving.

"That was a nice use of Kakayajutsu (Gunpowder Techniques), but you weren't fated to defeat me with a tool." Neji said, moving in to carefully check at Naruto's pulse. Touching at his neck he received none, "It seems you weren't fated to defeat me at all."

Several seconds passed and not a single sign of life.

It was over.

It had really been over ever since his Eight Points attack. From that point it had only been a matter of time.

Farewell Uzumaki Naruto, "You were a worthier opponent than you had any right to be." Neji said as he turned to walk away, "You can't run from your fate. And yours was sealed the moment you disabled Hinata-sama and found yourself on the outs with Konoha."

He felt a tension lift off of himself. There was still anger in his heart, but the endorphins in his head mixed with the sensation of coming down from his adrenaline rush and set him in a haze of comfort. The feeling of a hard job well done.

There was no feeling like it in the world… for multiple reasons. It didn't come without a price. There was a reason that it was good tactics to strike at a foe immediately after a victory. It was absolutely impossible to pay good attention to your surroundings when your inner mindset had all of the consistency of marshmallow puffs.

And to a ninja, footsteps didn't exist.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Neji was hit directly in the kidney with a blow that felt as if it had twisted up his insides before sending him flying away, planting him face down on the ground the way Naruto had fallen moments earlier.

Standing up with his arm extended, palm out and hand turned to an awkward angle, Naruto's eyes were bloodshot as he gasped down air as if it were the single most precious commodity on the planet.

"Everything is a weapon." Naruto said, taking deep, sucking breaths as if he would never get another one, "My own death is a weapon."

The backpack had saved Naruto's life.

During Neji's greatest offensive push, it forced Neji to strike at spots that he normally wouldn't have when he spun Naruto around. His second strike to Naruto's shoulder blade didn't land perfectly, and his blows to the back had to be averted to the sides somewhat. What should have killed Naruto after the conclusion of the eight attacks only resulted in him being badly injured.

Had they all landed appropriately, Naruto would have died painfully. His blood flow through his torso would have stopped altogether, and his heart would have failed from the tension. That Naruto's heart stopped only convinced Neji that despite his amendments to the technique it had still done the job.

"You _were_ dead!" Neji said, struggling noticeably just to speak, "I checked your vitals. You had none."

"Shishamyaku no Jutsu (Dead Pulse Jutsu)." Naruto said, holding his heart with his left hand as he momentarily freaked out, a wild glint in his eye, "I hate that jutsu. I hate that jutsu. I hate that jutsu!"

In the mountains, this had been the first jutsu Jiraiya had taught Naruto. He taught Naruto to literally stop his own heartbeat via a combination of inner focus and a breathing technique. Holding it for too long would kill you, no faking it at all, which was why Jiraiya saw fit to keep a defibrillator handy while making Naruto learn it.

Why Jiraiya made Naruto learn a technique that could have killed him first? By Jiraiya's reasoning there was no need to teach him the Rasengan and dress up his taijutsu first if he was just going to wind up dying when they got to the Shishamyaku.

"What did you do to me?" Neji asked, blood welling up from inside of his mouth. He couldn't rid himself of enough of it as he could feel his lungs fill.

"The Rasengan. My dad's best melee jutsu." Naruto said.

The way it was done was with proper timing, not just of the blow itself but of the exact motion of the attack. Make contact with the strike and turn just at the point of contact. The organs would be ruptured. It was still imperfect though. Naruto had to use it like a common strike in order to generate the intended force.

Jiraiya said that Naruto's father had been so skilled with the jutsu and so fast in its execution that he could use it on a target in the middle of a crowded gala and the only sign of the jutsu on the corpse would a spiral mark on the flesh of the deceased where Minato had touched him.

For now, the way he used it would have to do.

Neji knew he was done for. He felt the sting where Naruto had hit him. He was bleeding internally too heavily, and if Naruto had used a jutsu he had struck true. His kidney was dead and the other organs in the vicinity had suffered as well.

"To be done in… by a dropout." Neji laughed painfully, "A ninja that never even finished the curriculum."

"Why are you talking like it's all over?" Naruto's heart started to beat faster at the thought of what this sort of reflective talk was implying.

"Because it is. You win." Neji said simply, "I cannot move. And I'm losing too much blood inside. If I survive the next five minutes… it would be a miracle."

Naruto sank to his knees and stared at his hands, covered in dirt, grime, and his own blood before looking over at Neji, "You were better than me." The grim reality of taking a life felt hollow.

His techniques were cleaner. Even with Naruto's taijutsu improvements, Neji's Baguazhang and Fanziquan dual barrage overpowered him. He could make Naruto out in the dark well enough to land precise blows when Naruto only had a general idea of his own aim at best.

"If I were better than you I wouldn't be the one laying here dying." Neji argued snappishly, "Do not sully my death with the belief that the person that defeated me was inferior to me. Think like a ninja instead of a martial artist. You improved your taijutsu enough to stay alive against me in close-range combat; my specialty. You developed a direct counter to neutralize an entire facet of my usual strategy. You used your jutsu in an astute manner. You took advantage of my underestimating you time and time again, and your final sleight of hand…"

"Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey!" Naruto jumped over to Neji and shook him to keep him from dozing off. There wasn't anything he could do to stop it. They weren't anywhere near a hospital, Naruto had no phone, and transporting Neji himself would do more harm than good, "Don't you die on me you son of a bitch! What am I supposed to tell Hinata huh? I blinded her and now I killed you?"

"My father died as a ninja… the same as most of us did and probably will." Neji slurred weakly as he shut his eyes, "She will understand. And if she does not…" He left it hanging in the air before he began to speak again, "...We all learned the rules of this life as ninja after we chose it, like a game, and you cannot deviate, no matter what."

Naruto didn't know why he felt so much sorrow. This man had tried to kill him. Had targeted his friends. Had orchestrated events that would have seen them suffer in an effort to get to him. They had brutally fought one another tooth and nail, "Stop talking dumbass. Talking makes you die."

But he did not stop. He was not done with what he had to say, "You know, if there is one thing that I have learned, it is that we all must obey the rules of the game." Neji said, his voice growing quieter and quieter as he continued on. "For better or worse we can pick the game Uzumaki Naruto, but we cannot change the rules."

"What does that mean?" Naruto asked him, receiving no response, "Hey. Wake up. Neji. Neji!"

That was it. He was gone.

Naruto lowered his head and punched at the ground three times as hard as he could before leaving it at that. He clapped his hands together in something of a short prayer for the most powerful enemy he'd ever fought to the finish with.

That guy… even the posture he had in death was dignified. It looked like he could have been buried right then and there from the positioning of his body.

Getting up, Naruto just walked away and didn't turn back. As bad as his condition was, the least he could do as the victor was to walk away under his own power. He felt like hell, but he was still breathing. He'd heal. Neji would not.

So this was how it was going to end. Neji was dead. His identity would be found within a matter of hours after he would be found in the morning. He would be sent home to his family, and as a ninja family they would accept that he died as a ninja.

Naruto, the only person in the world that would know for sure just what happened would never speak of this night again. He would leave it unsaid, the fact that he'd killed someone in battle. He could not and would not ever speak of it. That sat on his mind heavily.

All the while he stared at his hands, "So this is what being a ninja is supposed to be? You can't live the way you want, you have to look over your shoulder knowing you're gonna die someday, and the only time you can shine is in the darkness?"

No. He was going to become a Kage. Even as a nuke-nin he was still going to be a Kage.

And he'd show the world, he'd show Konoha, he'd show everyone everywhere that ninjas didn't have to live and die in the dark. They didn't have to adhere to a code that would only grant them sacrifice and the people around them loss.

They could live in the light too.

XxX

Standing on a crane elevated high above the freight yard, a man with long light-purple hair stood, interestedly observing the battle between skilled children below, all the way until its conclusion. He wore a large, open, hooded cloak that revealed his muscular build, white pants and belt holding all sorts of goods, his hands covered in bandages.

A smile of satisfaction sat on his face, "The boy with the Baguazhang and the Fanziquan had remarkable potential. It's a shame that a life like that had to end."

The two youths that piqued his notice in the Black Valley had been observed in action, and they hadn't disappointed when it came to be showtime.

Below him, sitting on a more secure portion of the crane, the bespectacled, purple-haired, suited Ryuuto looked down in much of the same. From where they were, near-sighted as he was, he had trouble keeping up with the battle, but the final move was something he couldn't have missed, "Uzumaki-san came back from the dead to win that fight, and ol' Ken-chan even defeated a killer ninja earlier tonight."

"Ryuuto." The man said, addressing his disciple, "Things have changed. The group of talented youngsters you said you were gathering for me. You were planning to set them against YOMI to test all of yourselves weren't you?"

"Yes Kensei-sama." Ryuuto said with a small smirk, "This entire situation with Uzumaki-san and my old friend Ken-chan has been quite interesting. Two of Ragnarok's prospects jumped ship actually."

"Well forget about that plan of action." The master of the pair said, "As of now I'm with Yami, and as my disciple that makes you automatically a member of YOMI."

…Well fuck then. What about Ragnarok?

Able to sense the disagreement in Ryuuto's aura, 'Kensei' gave him a bit of a reprieve, "Your group as it were, find out who's interested in continuing on with you. I don't have any interest in breaking them up after all of the hard work you put into selecting skillful candidates for me."

It was better than nothing, but there was still a problem, "And those that aren't interested? Ragnarok has Katsujinken members." Siegfried and Thor were already out, Freya was 100% Katsujinken, Berserker was a mystery, and Kisara and Hermit were more than likely on the edge.

"If they aren't interested we cannot take them. They'll more than likely be your enemies one day soon if they're as skilled as you claim."

"I understand sensei."

"I'm glad that you do." 'Kensei' said, "And I know you were impressed with that boy, Uzumaki you called him, winning here. But don't bother trying to recruit him to fill out your missing spots. He's out of reach."

"But he's not with that Konohagakure organization you told me about." Ryuuto said.

"No, he's clearly an outcast." The deathmatch made that quite clear, "But he is with Ryouzanpaku in a way, not quite like your friend Kenichi, but he's in deep enough. He won't join YOMI."

Which would mark him as an enemy as well.

At least it was going to be fun. Instead of seeing how he stacked up against YOMI, Ryuuto was going to see how he stacked up amongst them, 'Ken-chan… you are really not going to enjoy the next few months.'

* * *

**And that's that for now.**

**This triple shot is in honor of the fact that as of now I am finally FREE OF MOTHERFUCKING COLLEGE FOREVER! WHAT!? **

**Now I'm just waiting for my bachelor's degree to be mailed since I didn't get to walk. Hoorah. Four years and a ton of racked up debt that I'll have to begin paying off at the start of next year, but it's finally done.**

…**So now what?**

…

…

**Meh, you don't care. It's cool. **

**Kenchi out.**


	18. The Spoils of Victory

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Apparently my college needs to resend all of the diplomas it gave out for the spring semester, because they misspelled the word 'Virginia'.

My question is, why the fuck did it take two months for enough people to link up and realize that they all had misspelled diplomas?

**Chapter 18: The Spoils of Victory**

* * *

SHINK

"Stop."

SHINK

"Naruto-san, stop."

SHINK

"Why do you keep doing that!?" Kenichi eventually snapped at Naruto after having a shuriken bounce off of his back for the umpteenth time in the last few moments while he'd been striking a post outside of the dojo, "That's dangerous!"

"No it's not." Naruto replied, getting up to pick up all of his discarded shuriken, "Your new outfit is awesome. You didn't even get a nick on you underneath that dougi and I know my aim was on."

Kenichi now sported a sleeveless Karate/Jujitsu-style dougi with chain mail underneath, Muay Thai wraps on his hands, and loose Kung Fu pants and shoes. It was kind of a badass look actually, "You think so?" He asked sheepishly.

"Yes! You get chain mail!" Naruto complained aloud as Kenichi was now off in his own little world, praising his own outfit and the merits of its cool factor, "Where's my damn chain mail? I get cut and stabbed way more than you do!"

Out of nowhere, Shigure landed behind Naruto on his backpack and poked him on top of his head, "It's a gift for our… obedient disciple. Not the one of mine… that runs off in the dead of night and disappears for a week without communicating."

"I said I was sorry." Naruto muttered out as Shigure's index finger seemed to stab into his scalp. Damn it, was everything about this woman sharp?

"Apologizing… is a sign of weakness." She replied, tapping him several times on the top of his head.

It had been a week since the final encounter, and Naruto hadn't said a word to anyone about what had happened to Neji. Things just died down and petered out. Kiba and Ino had been deported, and nothing else had happened since the battle at the freight yard.

That night Naruto had slogged his way straight home in the dark, no running trains, no taxi, no alternative method of transportation. He spent the few hours it took walking home to commit himself to burying it as deep as he possibly could.

He wasn't going to say a word about it to anyone. No one had to know.

Naruto wasn't proud of what had happened. When he'd gotten home in the wee hours of the morning, Shikamaru and Tenten had both still been up, waiting on him. Nothing needed to be said between the three of them. He had been covered in blood, mostly his own, and just walked upstairs to shower, treat his wounds as best he could, and sleep.

None of them had spoken of it. Of either Shikamaru's fight resulting in Shino's death, or Naruto's resulting in Neji's. It didn't need to be said within their home. They didn't need to justify anything to one another. Naruto dropped that crap by the time he'd reached the front door and let it blow away in the wind outside, or at least he'd like to believe he'd done so.

Ninja life had already proven that it couldn't be kept separate from the rest of his life, but damned if he couldn't try to do so.

If anyone at Ryouzanpaku ever found out that he'd killed someone, he didn't want to think about what would happen. He did all of that in order to fight and preserve his way of life, to keep his friends out of danger. Letting them know what he'd done would just result in him losing it and them though.

So he wandered back into the dojo the next morning. What Neji had done to him had landed on his body. The bandages he'd been wearing the night before already covered everything, so if anyone took them off they'd never have known if the marks on him were old or new. He never spoke a word on what happened, or whether or not the entire ninja thing was over.

Because the fact of the matter was, if he had to lose anyone at all he would rather choose that they be alive and hate him than be dead but loving him as they died.

He wasn't Katsujinken or Satsujinken. That was just the way it was. Why did there have to be two extremes to that degree and nothing else? Naruto didn't believe that as a ninja his skills were only meant to kill and destroy, but he also didn't believe that killing was inherently wrong, that he should try to save his enemies no matter what the circumstance.

"….-fter… -actice today?"

"What?" Naruto asked, coming back to reality when he heard Kenichi addressing him for some reason, "Sorry, could you say that again?"

"Sure…" Kenichi said, raising an eyebrow. Naruto had been more eccentric than usual since that night that the ninja activities all came to a head, "I was just asking if you were doing anything after practice today? We're pretty much done. It's a light day."

And it was a weekend. Usually that meant that their noses would be mashed to the grindstone extra-hard, but not today. It was a straightforward 6 am to noon day.

"I don't know. Honoka's here playing games with Apachai, so I guess I'll go mess with her a bit." Naruto informed Kenichi and Shigure, mostly for her benefit so that she didn't feel edgy about his whereabouts again. For someone that didn't show any emotional tells she was extremely protective.

"Why do you want to play with my sister?" Kenichi asked, eye twitching at the oddity of the situation, "You're sixteen."

"Because your little sister's adorable and I haven't done anything with my favorite chibi since before I almost got killed a billion times over the last two weeks." Naruto wondered to his friend, "I'd like to try to persuade her one more time that I'm cooler than you before someone actually finishes me off." He joked.

Ryouzanpaku's number one disciple didn't see why not. He knew that Honoka was rather fond of Naruto, and the feeling was mutual. It was probably Naruto's wiggy attitude as of late that was getting to him. It was starting to make even _him_ paranoid.

"Right." Kenichi said, heading off to change into some regular clothes again, "But don't cheat again. Seriously Naruto-san, she's 12."

"Oh, because cheating at cards is such a bad thing to do to a twelve year-old." Naruto deadpanned, "You wanna know what people did to me when I was twelve? I wish somebody cheating at cards was the worst thing that happened to me back then." He finished, muttering to himself as Kenichi left.

Side conversation aside, this left Naruto alone with Shigure again. It wasn't awkward the way it used to be back in the beginning. There was a steady content sense between the two of them, when she wasn't tormenting him with her training.

Feeling her take the sharp point of her finger out of his head and drop down off of the bag on his shoulders, Naruto rubbed it and turned around to face her normally blank expression. He felt like he was finally getting used to how strange she was. For the last week though he definitely felt something was off between them.

And it was because she knew. He knew that she knew. She knew that he knew that she knew. She was just wondering how to bring it forward to him short of simply throwing it in his face and kicking him out.

Ryouzanpaku had kicked out its last disciple; Isshinsai Ogata. Hayato had seen that he had dark intentions for wanting to learn the martial arts and gain power, so he had cast him out years ago. This had been before Shigure's time as a master there however, so other than knowing about this man, she had not experienced anyone simply being given up on before.

She had experienced someone that she knew killing before however. Akisame had killed someone in battle before. She had seen it. She had seen it because he had been forced to kill her father in combat or die himself. Even a master as powerful as Koetsuji Akisame, that knew how to control himself from destroying an enemy in such a manner no matter how powerful they were; even he had killed before accidentally.

Naruto definitely didn't want to be a killer. He'd solved his problem that night, she knew that he did, but he didn't feel any pride in it. No puffing of his chest, no talking about any new skills that he'd obviously learned. Nothing. When he wasn't occupying his mind with training his lament shined through clearer than he knew.

During the last week Shigure had seen him stare off into the distance during breaks or whenever she'd brought him into her room to talk to him or listen to questions he had. The last thing was specifically important because normally he'd keep his eyes buzzing around all of the weapons in her room as if he were searching for something.

Probably something to do with that 'mission' of his that had originally introduced them to him.

He'd stare at his hands intently before any time he was supposed to spar with Kenichi or Miu. There were signs that never lasted long. It was never long enough for someone that wasn't paying complete attention to him the entire time to notice, but she did.

"Rest well." Shigure said, setting her hand on top of Naruto's head, "Don't… disappear again." She just walked past him and continued onward to the quarters of the masters to do… whatever it was that she did when she wasn't training herself or him.

Naruto just blinked and stared after her before clicking his teeth together in confusion, 'I still don't get that woman.' He thought to himself as he headed off to change clothes prior to his departure.

XxX

(A Short While Later – Inside the Masters' Quarters)

Why play a game of hot hands with a twelve year-old girl when you were a ninja with finely honed reflexes and senses?

Why not? It wasn't like Naruto had to focus in the slightest to keep dodging her. He could just chill and watch whatever Apachai was sitting and raptly paying attention to on TV. The show sucked, but the man was simply unwilling to change the channel, and as long as he didn't want to get in on the game himself, Naruto was just fine with that.

Honoka focused her eyes on Naruto's face as hard as she could in an effort to find the perfect moment to strike at his hands which were positioned just above hers, held out and extended, meant to be vulnerable to her.

Oh how she longed to smack the backs of them so that it could finally be her turn again to make him miss his slaps… not that he ever actually slapped her hands when it was his turn to do so. He just poked them.

Smacking her hands would more than likely break them at the wrists. She could pout about it all she wanted to, he wasn't going to fucking hit her hands. Nobody needed that drama on a Sunday afternoon.

As quickly and smoothly as she could, Honoka pulled her hands from beneath Naruto's and by the time she flipped them for the smack she hit nothing but air, "That's not fair! You're not even playing Lemonhead!"

"I'm so totally playing. It's against the rules to look at the hands anyway." Naruto replied, eyes on the TV. He put his hands back above Honoka's only for her to try a quick sneak attack the moment they were in the ready position. Another miss, but it got a grin out of him, "Ha. Nice. I like it."

"I missed again!"

"Yeah, but that was so dirty. I'm rubbing off on you Tidbit."

"Mou…"

"Maybe I should sit on my hands for a half-hour to make 'em fall asleep and we can try again then, 'cuz as long as I can feel your hands move you don't have a chance." Naruto said, unable to see the preteen girl seethe at her inability to get one over on him, "Do you want to play something else?"

"Not 'till I get you." Honoka replied determinedly, only to swing and miss four times in rapid succession… while she was looking at his hands, "How are you doing that!?" She tried at that point to flat out grab for his hands only to still miss each time. Looking up she said Naruto grinning widely while still watching TV and dove for his entire upper body.

Was she really able to tackle him to the floor? Nah, but it was more fun to let her think she could, so he flopped and played the victim, letting her pull on his hair and mess with his goggles.

Miu came into the room after completing the training that she was meant to undergo for the day and smiled at the sight of Naruto playing around with Kenichi's little sister, letting her beat him up, 'Aww… that's so sweet.'

The key to it was that no matter what he would never let her grab, hit, or even touch his hands. And that seemed to piss her off more than roughing him up could assuage much to Naruto's amusement.

Kenichi even came in during this time and saw Honoka roughhousing with Naruto. It was quite a sight watching his best friend let his little sister kick his ass.

"Stupid ninja hands." Honoka muttered, completely focusing on trying to wrap herself around the pinned Naruto's arm and crawl her way up it to get to his isolated hand, "…Think they're so great."

"When you get to my hand are you just gonna slap it Tidbit?" Naruto asked, still letting himself be humbled by a twelve year-old. He was just picking with her though. It was fun, "That's totally a waste of time. This is way past hot hands now. You should at least bite me or something."

"I'm really thinkin' about it." Naruto just laughed to himself as she struggled to hold his arm down with her diminutive weight and reach his hand, "Stupid Lemonhead. You can pick the games, but you can't just change the rules!"

As he'd been laughing, Naruto had his hand sort of in his hair and on his face, but when Honoka said that last thing it struck a chord. He moved his hand away from his face and felt as if he could see large stains of red on them, as if they were still stained with blood. As if he'd never washed himself clean after fighting Neji that night.

Looking over to his other hand he could see it as much worse than the one closest to him. He couldn't let that kind of taint stain Honoka! Not a chance!

In a single motion, Naruto sat up and jerkily freed his arm from Honoka wrapping herself around it like a sloth. She fell from the slight height she'd been dangled in the air by, but Naruto ensured that she simply plopped down right in his lap, a little disoriented but otherwise fine.

She wanted to at first tease him about actually getting him to 'fight back' that hard, but she stopped when she saw the hollow echoes of his eyes as he looked at his hands, "…Lemonhead?"

Naruto knew full well that what he'd just done was strange, so there was a need to mask it and mask it well, "Oh! I just remembered that there's something I've gotta go do today! Miu-chan what time is it?"

It was a quick enough lapse in composure and a smooth enough bluff that Miu only blinked at the sudden shift in focus and attitude before checking the nearest clock she could find, "Ah, it's almost one-thirty."

"Right. Gotta roll." Naruto hopped up and walked over to the door where his backpack and shoes were. He remembered leaving similarly to that a week ago, only this time he had to make it look more hurried than that time. He didn't have anywhere to be. He just had to get out of there to clear his head, "I'll see you guys in school tomorrow, alright? Bye Honoka."

Honoka waved goodbye and turned to her brother to see that he hadn't seen anything really wrong with what had happened. On the other hand however, she'd been close enough to easily see that something about him had been rattled.

"'Big Boobs', what's wrong with Lemonhead?" Honoka asked as Miu as she walked over to her and Kenichi, choosing to climb up her brother's back instead of the now absent Naruto's since Kenichi was strong enough to endure it like he was an oak tree nowadays.

He did react to her wondering what was wrong with Naruto though, "What do you mean? He seemed fine to me." Kenichi asked as Honoka seemed to have more trouble getting up to sit on his shoulders without a bag as an anchor point to climb with.

"Naruto has fighter's remorse, apa." Apachai pointed out helpfully from where he was still religiously watching TV, "Apachai doesn't know much about it though since all Apachai's trainers in his gym told him to break his opponents in one hit!"

He might have been occupied the whole time, but he hadn't been for the rest of the week. As thoughtless to most things as the Muay Thai Death God could be, he could pick up on certain things fairly easily, almost like an animal in his instinctive nature at times.

For the benefit of those that didn't understand the reference, namely Kenichi and Honoka, Miu explained the concept of fighter's remorse, "Even when you're Katsujinken and you fight trying to preserve life, grandpa always says there might be a time when you hurt someone badly. More than you want to to win a battle. That danger gets more real the stronger you get. Empathetic people are vulnerable to this."

"Remorse? What? Like survivor's remorse? That kind of thing?" Kenichi asked.

"Well it's different in premise." Miu said, "But it's similar in principle."

That didn't sound like Naruto to Kenichi. And if it was true he sure hadn't noticed it. Nothing had seemed that off about Naruto all week. He trained just as hard as he always did, he laughed and joked, played around, "Are you sure? This is Naruto-san we're talking about here."

"Apachai is sure." Ryouzanpaku's Muay Thai master stated, "Naruto's been like that since the day he came back."

"He was fine the night we both got back to town too."

Apachai turned around and looked at Kenichi strangely before realizing his folly and playfully knocking himself on the head, "No, Apachai means the day after that night. Sorry, Apachai's Japanese isn't so good, apa."

Miu held a hand up to her chest in worry, "…He has remorse?" So that feeling that she had that night that she watched Naruto walk away… she figured it was Naruto going off into a scenario where the odds were on him dying. That had been more trepidation than anything else. But if Naruto had remorse that meant that he'd done something he couldn't put behind him, "Oh no."

She could only dread what it actually was.

"Should we look for him?" Miu asked. But that wouldn't do any good. They didn't know where he was going, and it probably wasn't home either, "…Or is that not such a good idea?" Even if they found him, trying to make him do anything would make him clam up or change the subject.

Kenichi took a second to think about it before pondering hard, "It might be that he's feeling what he did to Hinata-san. He did tell us when we asked before that he saw her after we got back from the wilderness."

Well, that was the best-case scenario as to what he was feeling remorse over.

XxX

(Elsewhere Across Town – Naruto's House)

In the backyard, Shikamaru and Tenten stood staring at a figure lying down on the picnic table set out back.

Now it wasn't that there was a hippie-looking bum sleeping outside of the house on their table that bothered them, at least not the act by itself.

It was more disturbing to think about the fact that this man had gotten into their backyard when the entire perimeter of the house; frontyard, backyard, walls surrounding the backyard, all had traps set up all over to deter unwelcome guests. This man had gotten into the backyard without setting off any of them.

And he had a half-eaten sandwich right by him that they were certain had come from the kitchen inside.

"Wake him up." Shikamaru told Tenten after a while of observing the big, white-haired man, "He might be dead."

"He's not dead." Tenten assured him, "And if he is dead, why would I try to wake him up?" She walked a circle around the table and took note of the middle-aged man. He had to be over or around fifty years of age, "What's with these wooden sandals? He can't seriously walk around in those?"

"Hey, why not?" Shikamaru said, walking up and contemplating poking the man, "Should we just leave him here? I think it'd be way more troublesome to wake him up… but then this might end up becoming a place for squatters, which would be even more troublesome."

Tenten was highly offended that some weird old drifter managed to get past her traps and picked up an acorn from across the yard, tossing it up and down in her hand before throwing it right at the slumbering intruder, a high arc on her throw as she was aiming right for his ear, "Up and at 'em!"

The old man just muttered and rolled over in his sleep, ripping the entire tabletop with him off of the benches to cover his body with as if it were some kind of comforter.

"…" The acorn just bounced off of the underside of the table with a tiny 'plunk' while Shikamaru and Tenten stared at him with much more trepidation than before. He had absolutely no leverage or momentum to do what he just did. He made that table look like it had been made of construction paper.

Shikamaru simply turned around abruptly and headed inside, "That's it. I'm done. I'm not touching this one." He was just going to wait for Naruto to come home. He'd be the one stupid enough to try and do something about that guy sleeping in the yard. Until then he could live with it.

Tenten just stared at the old man and then to Shikamaru who had slid the glass backdoor shut and closed every single blind he could find that was open, "…Don't you lock that door Nara Shikamaru, damn you."

The man with the long, spiky white hair just continued to get his nature nap in underneath the top of a table. Unfettered by the teenagers that had just pondered the merits of disturbing his slumber. Of course they had thought better of it.

"Tch. Smartass kids." Jiraiya snorted from his place of slumber, "They'll do though."

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Masters' Quarters – Akisame's Room)

In Akisame's room he sat chiseling out a statue of a Buddha. This one wasn't meant to be used in training as a heavy throwing dummy, it was meant to be a small work of art. He was going to take his time with the day off presented to him and create something beautiful.

If only it weren't for that nagging feeling that he was being watched, "…Shigure." There was really only one person that could get that close without him noticing until they were right there, and indeed standing upside-down on the ceiling was the young weapons mistress observing him sculpt, "Is there something I can do for you?"

He didn't turn around or stop chiseling, because Shigure didn't start talking. She wasn't the most conversational of the masters to begin with, and that would only exacerbate things when it came to the uncomfortable topic that she wanted to talk about.

Well, she didn't want to talk about it, but she felt that she had to. She needed council. The Elder was out wandering again, and Akisame was the smartest person she knew, as well as the one she trusted the most.

"You already know what he did… don't you?" Shigure finally asked after minutes of silence.

Yes he knew. Not from Naruto himself necessarily, by direct word of mouth or observing his actions. He actually hadn't paid close enough attention to do so, more focused on training Kenichi after his first brush with Satsujinken.

No, he figured it out because Shigure sleepwalked from time to time… and she said things in her unconscious state.

Akisame simply let out a hum and continued his artisan work without answering one way or another. If he took control of the conversation it would do no good. As far as the rest of them were concerned, Naruto was her disciple, not theirs. This was something she had to come forward with herself. He didn't even use Ryouzanpaku as his origin of training the way that Kenichi did.

Dropping to the floor, Shigure turned her back to Akisame's, "I don't know what to do." She said slowly, "That night… he didn't say the things he said just because he felt he would be risking his life. He said them because one way or another he felt that he would be dead to us."

Either for real, or in spirit.

"Naruto isn't ignorant to the difference between the Katsujinken and Satsujinken ways of life." Akisame finally said, "He never considered himself Katsujinken, but was sensitive to it because of his relationships with Miu, Kenichi, and the rest of us."

Raised as a ninja child, his thoughts on death were fairly loose. He feared little for his own when compared to other people, even other martial artists, but it had only gone as far as accepting the fact that anyone could be killed in combat. Because he'd washed out of the system halfway through, he hadn't been conditioned to choose death first unless it was pragmatic to select otherwise the way the other ninja children had been.

"_I won't kill anyone I don't have to. It's the easy way out."_

"_It's a stereotype as far as I'm concerned that a ninja has to be a cold-blooded killer, and I don't believe in it!"_

"…Thus, he's never considered himself Satsujinken either. He doesn't fight with the intent to destroy his enemies. He believes that it should be a last resort." But that still stood that he believed in it.

It was a consequence of feeling like you had to handle things yourself. When he was pressed, he went to that last resort. He more than likely killed Hinata's cousin because he felt backed against a wall.

He'd never been put in such a situation before. Just defeating Neji wouldn't have been enough. Nothing would have been solved by it in his mind. Everyone he loved still would have been in danger.

There was also the prospect that killing Neji hadn't been the intention of the battle. Things happened in the heat of combat, especially when you were young.

"He's remorseful. His ki is so easy to feel because he has so much… and he can't control it. I know you have too." Shigure defended, an almost fierce bite in her voice, "Naruto is a good boy."

"I figured that it was good for you to train him." Akisame said, turning around on his stool with a smile on his face, "You've never trained anyone extensively before, and Kenichi is afraid of using weapons for multiple reasons so there was only so much you could do with him."

She took pride in teaching Naruto what she could. She loved training him. When he came to her trying to break down the purpose of the Spiral Cycle stance of his mother she reveled in trying to help him. He never disobeyed her, and he worked diligently on whatever she asked of him.

He trusted her. She was probably the first adult he trusted unconditionally, and he actually cared about what she thought of him, which was why he tried to hide things. Disappointing or otherwise hurting her in any way wasn't an option for him.

"You care about him very much, and you know he cares for you as well." The Jujitsu master said, "He refrains from considering you his master not because of the reason he said, that ninjas have no masters, but because he probably figured that one day it would come to this. He wanted to always make sure it was easier if the time ever came to cast him out."

If she was ever placed in the position where she had to kick him out, he at least tried to make it so that she could do so with as little pain as possible. That would be impossible though. Despite his efforts to keep his ties to Ryouzanpaku as limited as possible given the circumstances, he and Shigure were closer than either was willing to consider or accept.

If Naruto ever truly turned to the side of Satsujinken, Akisame had no doubt that it would break Shigure's heart.

"First and foremost, speak to him alone and get his side of the story." Akisame stated helpfully, "He won't lie to you. He won't lie to anyone. He's good at omitting things or avoiding them altogether though, but I don't think keeping him on topic will be much of a problem for you."

A stiff nod came from Shigure.

The talk began to lull away from its original topic to an extent as Akisame turned back around to continue sculpting, "…You know, there was actually a ninja that always felt that just because he killed when necessary, it didn't make Ninjutsu an evil discipline. This man always pointed out the fact that even in the original principle of good and evil that Katsu- and Satsujinken come from, the yin-yang, both the light and the dark side have aspects of the other. And that somewhere, the two forces have to meet, no matter how thin or impossible it is to see the line."

"You knew a ninja before Naruto?" Shigure asked curiously.

"Yes. It was before your time here." Akisame said, "Before Kensei's, before Sakaki's, and before Apachai's. If you want to know more about him, I would ask the Elder. I know of him in passing. The Elder knew him better."

"Then why bring it up at all?"

"Because that ninja was Naruto's father."

XxX

"T-This wasn't supposed to happen!" In a small office space used for unscrupulous Triad business, the scene was a ruin. Well over a dozen sizeable thugs and low-ranking gangsters had been done in by one teenager in black hooded garb, "Haven't you heard?"

"No, I haven't heard." Hermit said, stepping over the body of one of the enemies he'd just put down forcefully, "But then again, I don't care what you have to say, because you guys pissed me off."

"Fuck off!" The punk on the ground said as he continued to try and scoot away, "Word on the street is Ragnarok is dead! The rest of the gangs around ain't sittin' back and lettin' you martial arts guys just leave a hole that we can fill."

"So you want to just pick up the scraps from Ragnarok?" Hermit said as he stepped closer while his target crawled away, "Weaklings. All of you are trash. I'd be better off taking on those Shade Alliance clowns than wasting my time here." He kicked a man out of the way that had been in his path on the floor.

"Shade Alliance ain't interested in running the town. At least that's what they say, so we all figured, why not us?"

"Why not you? I'll tell you why. Because you can't be top dog when you fight like a pussy."

The man's mouth was caught wide open as Hermit delivered the final strike needed to put him away.

He didn't even bother looking down before turning and walking away to leave, "…Should've stayed in the hole you crawled out of when Ragnarok first took over."

What waste of his time. A bust of a day. This was supposed to be a test of his power by Kensei-sama? He owed the man for saving his life in the past, but this was almost insulting.

Hermit was never really averse to busting any ass, but for training this was weak. He'd easily been put through worse paces during the time Sougetsu had been back at his place, drinking and sleeping all the time when he wasn't training him.

Sougetsu said that if he had nothing better to do on his weekend day off he should try to find an opponent to test his training on. That suggestion manifested itself when Kensei appeared and announced his interest in bringing him into YOMI.

'An opponent to test my training on. Tch.' Hermit thought to himself as he headed out through the back of the building and took to the alleys, 'I could have destroyed these wimps before my master showed up to train me.'

There weren't that many people he felt like fighting with though. Well, other than one guy in particular.

His dislike of Kenichi hadn't ebbed over time since the incident at the mall. Instead it had only grown with time, constantly seeing him win against people he shouldn't have beaten such as Siegfried and even the ninja Kiba.

In Sougetsu's drunker moments while residing at his house, Tanimoto constantly heard him talk about his brother Kensei, and how any pupil he trained would have to be worth fighting.

Despite how he might have personally felt about Shirahama Kenichi, he wouldn't have lasted as long as he had against what was placed against him if he didn't have something worthwhile about him.

But unless he was willing to don the Hermit attire while at school and fight the bastard there he'd probably never get a decent shot at him. So that left him needing to find another opponent elsewhere.

'Well Odin did say that what's left of Ragnarok is about to go into YOMI.' So there would probably be no shortage of tough enemies after Ragnarok splintered. Thor, Siegfried, and perhaps Kisara. Not to mention Freya, 'It doesn't matter.'

It didn't matter if they were higher in the pecking order than him or lower. That didn't account for how strong he'd been getting while Sougetsu had chosen to spend a bit of time at his home before leaving again after he ran out of booze stockpiled by the previous owners of the house.

He was stronger than ever, even with just a few weeks of training with his master. And if Kensei was true to train him as well…

'I'll drop whoever stands in front of me.'

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Ragnarok Hideout)

Freya had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach as she arrived at the abandoned construction site that served as Ragnarok's base of operations. Her collapsed staff was concealed within her jacket, because as a weapons-user you just couldn't leave home without your tool in possession.

As she made it inside she was greeted by the sight of both Odin and Berserker, but still looked around in a bit of suspicion just in case, "Odin-sama." She already knew that Thor and Siegfried were gone from the group, so their absence was accounted for. Hermit did what he pleased unless he was certain it was something that had to do with Ragnarok's benefactor, but that didn't explain why Kisara wasn't there, "You wanted to see me here?"

"Yes." Ryuuto said with a calm smile, "You remember the original reason that I was able to attract you to joining Ragnarok don't you?"

Freya nodded, "The chance to learn techniques from a renowned master-level teacher; your sensei, 'The Sage Fist' Kensei-sama."

Of course she knew why she'd joined Ragnarok. The only reason she had done so was to get training from a master. Her grandfather was gone wandering so often that she was beginning to want for someone to teach her something new.

When she saw Odin exercise his strength and skill firsthand, and when he subsequently offered the chance to learn skills from the man that taught him, skills that would make her talents skyrocket, she was thoroughly onboard. That had been months ago however.

"I believe you've been waiting for long enough to meet me."

The level of the presence that filled the room was almost enough to choke Freya as a well-built hooded man entered the room from seemingly nowhere and stood between Berserker and Ryuuto with a smile on his mostly concealed face.

That kind of aura was unmistakable. The smile was friendly enough, but the intensity behind it was absolutely terrifying.

There was no question about it. This man was the master. And from how calm Ryuuto seemed to be in the man's presence it was his master, "K-Kensei-sama?"

"Please dear. There's no need to use that alias any longer. I've got nothing to hide from the group that my pupil amassed for me." The man said, arms open in an inviting gesture, "Such a skilled child as yourself… you know my actual name. Isshinsai Ogata."

"He still prefers to be referred to as 'Kensei' however." Ryuuto pointed out for her benefit, "So. What do you think Freya?"

She thought that this man was simply too much. Her grandfather let off his own powerful presence, but either she had become accustomed to his, or Ogata's was just that much stronger, "I… I don't know what to think." The staff-user said earnestly, "I've been waiting for so long to meet you Kensei-sama."

"Well here I am in the flesh." Ogata said, beginning to stroll around the room, "But before I can consider you any student of mine, there is something I would be remiss to keep from you. In order to learn my techniques you have to make a choice."

"A choice?"

"Yes. Ryuuto has long since selected it as long as he became the strongest, and Berserker here… well I can see that this young man just doesn't care about anything other than getting stronger. That's a good mentality for one to have on the path of Satsujinken."

Ooh, that… that wasn't going to work for her.

And this wasn't really the place to say no to that proposal, at least not if one held any value in their physical wellbeing anyway.

Ogata could already feel that her thoughts on the matter had wavered the second he'd brought up the ultimatum of becoming a Satsujinken martial artist, "That is unfortunate." He said with a sigh, "I can feel your hesitation. And I assume your grandfather would be extremely disappointed if his granddaughter went the Way of the Asura."

He hadn't been expecting her to switch philosophies. Martial artists rarely did without deep-seated reasons for doing so. Freya had never even humored the idea of using a blade on the end of her pole-arm, and as long as her staff remained just that, a staff, she would never choose a side that embraced killing.

Upon hearing that Ogata had figured her alignment before she'd even said anything, Freya felt defensive, and with good reason. Berserker and Odin ranked higher than her in Ragnarok for a reason. Ogata didn't seem the type to attack disciples. Even if he didn't, she highly doubted she would defeat either of the other two.

"As one of my students you would have had a prominent position in the disciple group YOMI." Ogata told the dark-skinned girl, "But your feelings hold you back. You wouldn't be able to accept my sort of teaching. As long as you force yourself to hold back as a Katsujinken, you'll always be weaker than you should be."

Freya awaited an assault or a challenge to fight, but it never came.

So was that it? They were just going to let her go. And YOMI? Wasn't Ragnarok supposed to be gearing up to fight them? And now Ogata was saying that they were going into YOMI? As in being folded into that organization?

Odin seemed to be alright with it. Berserker never seemed to be cross with anything really. Neither of them seemed to be prepared to stop her from leaving, which was the best option at the moment.

And like that, Ragnarok was down to Odin, Berserker, Hermit, and _perhaps_ Kisara… maybe.

"I wish that would have gone differently." Ryuuto said, honestly lamenting the way things turned out, "Freya really was a powerful person Kensei-sama. I knew she was Katsujinken from the beginning though, which was my mistake."

"Not a mistake Ryuuto." Ogata assured his pupil, "I'm actually impressed. You were able to convince Kugatachi Danki's granddaughter to follow your lead until the topic of martial arts ideology came up. I was looking forward to observing Kugatachi-Ryuu Joujutsu and seeing what I could make of that style… but it was not to be apparently. That's fine however. I still have you, Berserker here, Tanimoto-kun, and I think my stable of pupils is just going to continue to grow."

There was a war for the strongest in existence coming in regards to the world of martial arts, and from the standpoint of the Satsu side of things, only one could reign.

Berserker's same nonchalant expression hadn't changed since the start of the conversation, but a few moments after Freya had left the hideout he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out as well. He never said a word as he departed.

"Where are you going?" Ryuuto asked, though he didn't particularly care one way or another.

The muscled, blond bruiser stopped at the door and turned around to address his leader and his to-be master, "Ragnarok is basically broken up right?" Ryuuto nodded in affirmation, "That's what I thought." He said as he continued on his way out, "You said the Fists couldn't fight each other. That doesn't matter now does it?"

With that, he left. Ryuuto just shook his head and tilted his glasses up on his face, "Well, what do you think?"

"I like your selection of fighters. This will be a good test for Berserker." Ogata admitted with a bit of a gleeful chuckle, "You had an eye for talent Ryuuto. Now since we're here, do you think some hands-on training would be in order?"

Absolutely he did. When he finally fought against Kenichi he would show his old friend his growth from their childhood, and if Naruto decided to interject himself in the proceedings all of the ninja tricks in the world wouldn't save him in the end, "I'm still going to destroy Ken-chan's 'Shade Alliance'. Because that victory seems like it'll be the sweetest of all."

XxX

(That Evening – With Naruto – Elsewhere in Town)

"I must be losing my shit." Naruto said to himself as he walked around town aimlessly and by himself, "Come on. Get your head together. You didn't fight him trying to flat out kill him. It was the heat of the battle."

But he used such a dangerous jutsu to end things with Neji; the Rasengan. Jiraiya told him what it would do. Stressed greatly just how devastating the attack was when properly executed.

He could have aimed somewhere else. Somewhere that wouldn't have done as much damage. But then the battle would have continued because Neji wouldn't have stopped. Not until he was dead.

No. Thinking of aiming somewhere that wouldn't do as much damage was a completely Katsujinken way of thinking. He saw his opening and he took it.

But where the Rasengan wound up landing; liver, kidney, the soft targets… his first target. The best place to land and deal staggering damage from Neji's blindspot. A vital organ unprotected by any sort of bone that would take the brunt of the impact-.

And then it hit him.

Neji never saw the finish coming. Because of that, he could have aimed higher.

If he'd aimed higher up on Neji's back he would have still landed the attack, but it wouldn't have been outright fatal. Naruto went for the kill without thinking about it.

'I had to do it.' Naruto thought to himself, stopping his walk to take a seat on a bus stop bench for a short moment, '…I had to do it. If I didn't, it never would have stopped. He would have killed me, and who knows what else could have happened.'

He always told himself that if he wasn't on an assassination he would never try to kill an opponent, but he wouldn't hold back either. If they died in battle they died in battle, and they shouldn't have stood to fight. He expected nothing less than fatal force in return from his enemies, and who they were to him didn't matter, any one of them could kill him.

Reality was harsher on his psyche than that simple line of thinking. No matter how much he tried to use it to reason with himself, it wasn't doing enough to cushion the blow.

Looking around, Naruto frowned to himself as he started snapping back to the present, 'Great. I went halfway to the other side of town.' As he thought to himself, the faint sound of crunching filled his ears very closely. Turning to look over his shoulder, Naruto saw Tochumaru hanging out of an opening in his bag, chewing on a small cookie that he'd probably found somewhere in the depths of the pack, "You've been in there since I took the bag off after training haven't you?"

Tochumaru didn't say anything of course, being a mouse. He just kept on hanging out on Naruto's shoulder, polishing off the cookie before going back into the pack to get out another one and retaking his spot while Naruto started walking down the street.

Things were much safer these days ever since Ragnarok began tapering off in regards to the punks that they'd been propping up as underlings. He could walk around without having upwards of a dozen people trying to kick his ass for the first time in months. It was nice.

"Shigure knows what happened doesn't she?" He eventually asked his instructor's pet, getting him to actually stop eating for long enough to give Naruto a closed-eye look, "…I'm gonna get kicked out aren't I?"

Tochumaru just shrugged and kept munching on his cookie. He was getting crumbs on Naruto's shirt, but Naruto didn't care too much.

"You know, I keep that stuff in there for emergencies. Not for you to eat every time I come over." Naruto said in regards to the snacks the mouse kept eating every time he got into his bag, "Oh whatever. I think I need to start cleaning out my bag more anyway."

Since he was out, Naruto decided to get a bite of comfort food to help him get his head together before heading home, and since he was on the correct side of town, he knew exactly where he wanted to go. A nice little stand where he could go and get some high-quality ramen. It was pretty far out of the way of anywhere he'd go on a regular basis, but every now and then he'd head out there. Not for a while though.

Sure, it was fairly close to where he and Kenichi had the episode with Loki's gang and the Valkyries, but you couldn't put a danger stamp on good eats.

…He'd probably get his to go just to be on the safe side.

Tochumaru hid himself back inside of the backpack temporarily to keep a stir from being raised over Naruto bringing a mouse into an eating establishment, even if he was super-clean and ultra-smart. People that didn't know him tended to see him as common vermin, which wasn't cool with him.

Upon entering the small eatery to get in line and place his order, much to Naruto's surprise he found someone he knew waiting already as well.

Freya, and she was directly at the end of the line.

In his unintentional, yet eternal, bid to see how far he could push the envelope before he was violently admonished in some way, Naruto queued up behind her and waited just to see how long he could stand within breathing distance of a girl that made no bones about wanting to clobber him with a staff.

Apparently he wasn't the only one with something weighing heavily on his mind, as Freya was deep in thought the whole time as well. Naruto figured he could have been juggling broadswords behind her and she wouldn't have noticed that he was there.

Part of him wanted to talk because she looked like she needed someone to confide in, but there was literally no aspect of his personality, their history together, his physical appearance, anything at all that would entice someone like her to talk to someone like him in the slightest. The best he'd get out of interacting with her would probably be some sharp remarks and maybe a fight.

Unfortunately, he didn't really have a choice when Freya reached the front to place her order, received her receipt, and finally turned around to see him standing there, as if it was just normal for him to be standing behind her in line, "Uzumaki?"

"Uh… s'up?" Naruto responded, moving past her to quickly put in his order and keep from holding the line up, "Yeah, could I get 7 large ramens to go? 3 pork, 2 beef, 2 miso. Oh, and two more beefs too."

He might as well bring something back for Tenten and Shikamaru too. They were his friends and it was only polite.

"Are you mocking me?" Freya asked quietly, though her voice held a bit of an edge to it.

Naruto just gave her a strange look as he moved out of line after getting his receipt, "No. I'm hungry, and I like ramen. This is the only place in town that makes the good stuff." Some things were just coincidence, but while he had her there anyway-, "Thanks for the heads up about the ninjas by the way. I thought you would have wanted someone to bash my head in."

"If I said that, it's a figure of speech." Freya insisted as she leaned on a wall to the side of the ordering counter while they waited for their orders to be up, "Staff-users don't kill, and I couldn't let you go unaware if someone was actually out to kill you."

She crossed her arms over her chest, and while having his eyes drawn to her pushed up bosom, Naruto noted a distinct lack of accessories on her hands, "Where are your gloves? You know, the ones with your Ragnarok number on 'em?"

Freya cut her eyes his way sharply before sighing and softening her glance, "Ragnarok is done. Odin-sa-… Odin is folding the group into YOMI because of his master joining Yami." Cue blank stare in return from Naruto, "…I told you about them already, remember?" No, he didn't remember. Hence, more blank staring with a tilt of the head thrown in for good measure, "The group that Ragnarok was put together to oppose?"

"Uh… huh." Yeah, he still didn't get it, "Right. That group of guys that do… whatever it is that they do." Admitting ignorance was never going to be one of his personality traits.

"I don't understand you." Freya asked Naruto bluntly, "I honestly can't. You win and win and win. When you fight you seem to shine-." She said, getting Naruto to grin and prepare to preen like a peacock, his ego sufficiently stroked, "-But the rest of the time you seem to be one shade shy of being smart enough to even be considered an idiot."

"Kaname, I don't know what YOMI does." Naruto said, squinting at her after her somewhat hurtful but not entirely untruthful statement, "You didn't really explain anything about 'em when we fought. All I remember is that they're Satsujinken and… you're… not. Ooh."

"So I quit Ragnarok." Freya said, linking the rest of Naruto's thought with the point she had been trying to make from the start, "I think I'm done with street fighting anyway. Grandfather never agreed with me doing this, but I couldn't think of any other way to put all the years I spent training to any use. It wasn't like strong opponents worth fighting were just coming to me."

Even though she said that, it was clear that she was somewhat down about it. More than likely because she had lost the only avenue she'd had available to her to take on challenges to test her growth as a fighter.

Naruto knew that sort of thing was important to people with pride as martial artists. He understood. He liked a good challenge from time to time himself, as long as it didn't run the risk of killing him.

Oh hell, sometimes he liked them even when they did run the risk of killing him.

"Well look on the bright side." Naruto said, trying to cheer her up. Why he wanted to do so for someone that had tried repeatedly to kick his ass, he had no clue, "We don't have to fight each other anymore, so that means we can be friends right?"

Niijima would probably kiss his feet in school on Monday if he could convince Freya, who would undoubtedly bring the Valkyries along as well, to wind up with the 'Shade Alliance' in some way, shape, or form. Even if that wasn't the point of the extended olive branch, and even if she would insist that she wasn't Shade Alliance. That bastard had ways of swaying people even if you barely gave him an inch in the right direction.

Freya gave Naruto a hard look in return, "Do you treat everyone you've fought tooth and nail like your best friend?"

Much to her chagrin, Naruto actually took a moment to think about it seriously, counting off people on his fingers, "Pretty much." He eventually told her, "Miu-chan, Kisara, Takeda, Thor, Thor's awesome sideburns, and there's this girl named Renka from Chinatown that I need to make some time to go visit soon. Yeah."

"Why?"

"It seems like the only way I ever seem to get 'em."

"Including the ninja with the white eyes?" That one in particular seemed dead-set on getting Naruto's head no matter what it took to get the job done, "It's hard to imagine that you were able to convince that person to leave you alone."

At that, Naruto's demeanor shifted to a significantly more uncomfortable one, "Ugh, you got that right. That situation's over, don't worry about it. But nobody came out of that one friendly."

A sharp whistle from the counter directed both of their attention to one of the cooks working at the stand, "Hey, you two. Your food's been ready for two minutes now. We called your numbers out and everything." The man pointed out five white bags containing their respective to-go orders.

That put an end to their conversation as they retrieved their bags. Naruto's four to Freya's one. It was only after taking the bags that Naruto realized how vulnerable he would have been holding all of those bags if someone, *cough* Freya, decided to attack him.

Upon making it outside, Naruto grinned at the older girl one last time before turning in the direction of home, "Well I'll see you around Kaname. Don't be a stranger alright? I guess we're not enemies anymore, so if you ever need to pay a ninja to do ninja things, I'm your man."

"What exactly are ninja things?"

"It depends. I could skulk around and spy for you in the dead of night, or I can pick up your dry cleaning in record time… and everything in between."

That actually got Freya to crack a smile his way. He was harder to dislike now that there was no fundamental organizational reason to do so, "You're such a kid." She said before heading off her own way, "Goodbye Uzumaki."

Naruto just stood frozen in place, grin looking markedly less natural at that point. Eventually Tochumaru popped back out of his backpack and grabbed his ear to snap him back. By that time Freya was gone and completely out of sight.

Visibly affected by the end of that run-in, he picked up the mouse in one of his bag holding hands and looked at him directly while he started walking home, "She thinks I'm a kid? That's not fair. Just because she's two or three years older than me, I'm plenty grown. I lived alone, I pay my own bills. I'm a responsible adult, 'ttebayo!"

Tochumaru just lifted a paw and rolled it side to side in something of a wishy-washy manner to convey a 'sort of' kind of response.

"Oh whatever! And you're a goddamn mouse! How do you even know what that means?"

XxX

(With Freya)

On her way home with the food that she'd gotten for herself and her grandfather, Freya drew to a grinding halt in her progression when she heard the sound of a bubble audibly pop. She didn't panic or anything of the sort. She just calmly set her recent purchase on the sidewalk by a building and turned to face the person waiting for her to prepare herself.

Standing with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Berserker just observed her passively.

"Tch. I was expecting you earlier than this." Freya said, standing at the ready to defend herself in an instant, "I figured you would put this off until another day, so I went to pick up something for grandfather and I to eat before heading home."

"I was bored." Berserker said, "And fighting the former Third Fist seemed like something to do. So I'm here."

"That's a brute's sort of reasoning." Freya remarked with a serious look in her eyes. From her jacket sleeves she produced the two portions of her staff, "I never liked you Berserker. You treat fights like a hobby. You don't train. It's a shame. Someone with your natural talent… it's scary to think about how good you could be if you actually put real effort behind it."

"I don't care about martial arts at all other than the kind of fighters it creates." The muscular blond admitted as he began to walk toward her, "Someone like you Freya. Fighting you won't be boring will it?" His steps slowly began to pick up speed before he was running at her.

"Having a boring fight is going to be the least of your worries." With his hands still in his pockets, Freya intended to take advantage of the fact that Berserker completely lacked combat technique in order to defeat him quickly.

Her first move was a wide swing of her staff, but Berserker just stopped his rush and avoided it in the most inconceivable method anyone would have ever attempted. He avoided the blow by side-dodging it in the direction of her swing until he was out of its range.

Freya was astounded by such an asinine dodge, but was even more stunned by the fact that it worked. She didn't hit him, 'He moved in the same path as my staff without getting touched?'

Berserker decided that he'd need to take this rather seriously and held his hands up in his own rendition of a fighting posture.

Choosing to go on the attack, Freya jabbed out the end of her staff at Berserker only for him to knock it away with his forearm, but that was anticipated and intended by Freya, as she used the momentum generated by Berserker knocking the end of the staff away to turn her back elbow in the appropriate direction. She twisted the back end of the staff with her body behind it forcefully, only for Berserker to block again with his other forearm.

His face had barely registered that he was in a fight as he overpowered her and outright shoved her off of him down the sidewalk.

Berserker just looked at the bruise on his forearm that was forming after blocking Freya's second heavy attack. It was quickly turning from purple to black, letting him know that blocking a staff attack with any part of his bare body wasn't the best of ideas, "You bitch. That actually hurt."

Before she knew it, Berserker had rushed toward her, throwing all of his strength and weight behind an overwhelming punch that she endured while blocking with her staff. The force behind the blow knocked her to the ground, but she was quick to get back up, 'He's that much stronger than me?'

She knew that he'd have more physical strength than her. It was something she always expected as a woman fighting a man, and was a fundamental block of her belief in women matching power with men by using weapons. The sheer extent of it was beyond what she'd anticipated. He never trained. He just fought. How could he be that strong?

Once again he came forward with his fist drawn back and swung for the fences. In a bid to counterattack, Freya dodged by stepping back instead of blocking and tried to swing for his head the moment his punch missed. When he missed however, Berserker spun around, giving her his back in an odd position before his body dropped out, continuing the spin as he used his foot to powerfully sweep her legs in the middle of her counter.

Freya had to avert her positioning in midair to keep from landing on her head, but it was still a rough landing.

"I guess Odin's master was right. Being Katsujinken makes you a weakling." Berserker stared at his own fist as Freya got back up off of the ground, "I couldn't care any less if I killed you here. If you die, that just means you're just a snail beneath my foot, and it's your place to be crushed."

Freya held the back of her head and pulled her hand away to find that she was bleeding from her fall, "I won't be holding back anymore then since you can take it. I guess if this is the way it is… I can start using some of the ultimate techniques of Kugatachi-Ryuu Joujutsu."

"Don't tell me." Berserker said, "Show me-." Abruptly he had to lean his head out of the way of a long jab from the end of the pole-arm again, but it came close enough to graze his face and give him enough of an abrasion to draw blood. He was aware enough of the attack to avoid a follow-up tilt of the weapon that would have hit his head or his neck when Freya spun around, "Did you just get me aga-?"

"Third Technique! Kugatachi-Ryuu Gokui: Yamizuki (Kugatachi-Style Five Ultimate Techniques: Yamizuki)!" With her back turned to him, Freya sharply thrust her staff directly behind her and right into Berserker's chest, knocking the young man down to the ground emphatically with the speed and precision she generated with the combination of her spin and push.

Even with natural, instinctual God-given ability that he never had to develop, he had so many holes in his fighting style that someone like Freya could see them and exploit them if the need arose.

"There are five." Freya told Berserker's downed form, "That was one. Uzumaki stopped two before we were interrupted and he didn't even know I used a staff until right before we fought." On the other hand, Berserker knew of her fighting style for quite some time, even before Ragnarok had dissolved, "I guess that means you're weaker than him."

Without warning, Berserker curled his legs up to his chest and leapt right back up to his feet from his back before jumping through the air with a kick that she barely dodged. He brought his second leg into play after missing, kicking her and nearly knocking her into the street had it not been for her balancing herself on the curb with her staff.

With a callous kick, Berserker knocked the temporary stand of the staff out, causing Freya to fall. The dark-skinned girl spun in a 360 in the middle of her fall and turned it into an attack, swinging her staff downward with her aim at Berserker's shoulder.

She missed and the staff impacted off of the concrete with a smack. Back on her feet she endured a punch from Berserker by timing a block with her staff, but he simply grabbed the weapon to keep her from using it. His second fist was cocked back for another punch, but Freya disconnected the two parts of the staff and used them both for a simultaneous attack on both sides of his head.

Using both of his forearms, Berserker stopped them both only for Freya to move her hands and reconnect the staff behind his head. To his utter shock she pulled and brought his head down to knee him in the face, adding in a twist to throw him down to the ground afterwards.

Freya was beginning to breathe heavily at the exertion it took just to keep from being overwhelmed by Berserker's speed and power. He was completely ignoring the reach advantage she had with her staff and she was giving everything she had just to keep from being throttled by the bastard.

And he'd never properly trained to fight a day in his life. It almost wasn't fair. _Almost_. It would be completely unfair if she actually lost to him.

"Hn-hehehehehehe…."

Slowly Berserker got up, his back turned to Freya but his body quivering in laughter.

Before he even got up fully to his feet, he launched himself at Freya and turned mid-stride to assault her once again, "This is exciting!" He positioned for another haymaker and Freya prepared to block it again as it was too fast to counter. Instead of protecting from an overhand punch the way she had been anticipating, Berserker punched her from below with a funky-looking uppercut that hit her right under the chin, "Don't let me down now! You're the best I've ever had!"

Freya felt her teeth click from the impact but she didn't go down or falter too much in her defense. As Berserker raged against her with blow after blow she was able to use her staff to prevent many blows, but wound up taking so many others.

The close proximity Berserker used with his random, rapid barrage of punches and kicks limited his attacks, but it kept Freya from aptly counterattacking on her end. In order to get any offense going, she needed something even shorter than her already shortened staff. Once again she disconnected it into two parts and attempted to battle back with them, negating Berserker's attacks skillfully with her segmented weapon.

But with the range between them decreased so severely, strength became more important than ever, and that was something that she had been behind the eight-ball on since the start. It was even worse now.

"Just protecting yourself, that's all you can do Freya!" Berserker raged in the middle of his deranged cackling, "That's all anyone can EVER do in the end!"

One particular blow knocked one of her staff halves out of defensive position and left her open. With a maniacal look on his face Berserker kicked her right in the stomach, but followed through with the motion and stomped her onto the ground.

"You're just a regular person. A regular person trying to make themselves special with martial arts." He insisted once he believed it was over, "Well what do you think of me now? Do you think your martial arts are so infallible now!?"

On the ground, Freya coughed blood to the side as her grip on her staff slipped, 'He's… he's gone berserk. This is what his Berserker Mode is like.' He was standing over her, seething down heatedly, without a hint of remorse in his wild eyes.

She jabbed up with both of her arms and her staff segments only for Berserker to catch her attack at her hands. He pulled her directly upward, placing his foot right in the center of her chest before stomping directly down with every bit of the strength he could generate.

Freya's cry of pain at the feeling of her sternum fracturing echoed out through the open city air. They were like the strains of a classical verse to Berserker, who had been pushed to live up to his namesake.

He watched Freya writhe underneath his foot, coughing and trying to mask sounds of pain before dropping his weight down in a full mount position on her torso, "Yeah, I think Odin and Kensei-sama made the right choice letting you go." As he pinned her broken body down with his weight he cocked his hand back, planning on hitting her until she stopped moving for good, "…Die for me would you?"

The sound of metal cutting through the air made Berserker instinctively duck his head, saving his throat from the shuriken aimed at him. It didn't save him from someone grabbing onto his shoulders as they flipped over his head and threw him.

"Nichibotsu Kouka (Twilight Drop)!"

Instead of throwing Berserker away as the attack was supposed to do by its normal 'tamer' standards, it slammed him straight on his neck and shoulders. His body slid on the pavement away from Freya, his lower body aimed in the air until the sliding stopped and he came to rest straight on his back.

If it had been someone less tougher, if it had been someone that didn't have a neck like an ox, that attack would have broken it.

"Hehehehehehe…" All of those things did indeed apply to Berserker though, and he sat right up after getting slammed, "A sneak attack ninja boy? Was that to kill?"

"There _is_ a sure-kill way to do that move, but damn sure ain't gonna waste it on your sorry ass." Naruto growled, crouching protectively in front of Freya, ready to fight if things didn't stop then and there.

"Odin says that you're strong, the ninja that snuck into our base only cared about fighting with you, and even Freya swears that you're tough. I hope you'll be an entertaining match." Berserker gestured Naruto forward to take him on, "You'll have to be pretty impressive to outdo Freya."

Naruto looked over his shoulder at the girl in question, but Berserker took that as an opening to attack him and get him back for Naruto's own preemptive strike. He immediately turned his back and took the impactful punch off of his bag, taking the momentum to roll forward and pick Freya up off of the ground smoothly.

Thank the gods for ramen. One of the bags Naruto picked up had contained Freya's order instead due to their close proximity to each other. It took him a good number of blocks until he checked everything and realized it. Fortunately, she hadn't gotten too far from the ramen stand before all of this had happened, so he was able to backtrack and search fairly quickly.

Not quick enough though, but even if he'd shown up and went to stop the fight she probably would have kept him from doing so herself judging by the last conversation they'd had.

He stood up slowly, making sure he didn't jostle Freya too much as he did so, "You hit like a pussy." Naruto snapped, turning around to glare at Berserker, "Learn to throw a punch."

Berserker just shook his fist out, the look on his face one of thorough interest. Naruto made him miss without even turning around, causing him to land his punch in the wrong place. And whatever was in that bag made him feel like he'd punched a sack of bricks, "That didn't hurt you at all did it?"

"The next time I see you." Naruto trailed off, holding Freya in his arms as carefully as he could while keeping his eyes on Berserker, "…The next time I see you, I'll show you how scary Ninjutsu can be. And I'll show you that _this_-." His head indicated that he was referring to all of the damage he did to Freya, "-Ain't some joke or a game."

She still held on to the two pieces of her weapon of choice. There was something admirable about that.

"Why not now then?" Berserker asked, egging Naruto on to fight him. From what he'd heard from countless sources, it was child's play to goad Naruto into a fight even if it wasn't smart for Naruto to do so, "I'm warning you, you might not get a better chance to beat me head-on than here and now. I'll be even stronger the next time."

Naruto knew a challenge when he heard one, and as much as he wanted to beat his ass and put the fear of the dark into the bastard, Freya didn't look good at all. They weren't close to a hospital or to Ryouzanpaku where he could get her to Kensei or Akisame. So if he wanted to help he had to be fast.

"Good." Naruto said with a glare at the callous to-be second pupil of Isshinsai Ogata, "Maybe next time when you hit me it won't be some limp-wristed chicken shit shot."

With his choice of target adamantly refusing to fight, and his inability to draw him into combat, Berserker's adrenaline rush soon faded, leaving him just as impassive and nonchalant as before he'd taken up his fists and battled Freya.

He shoved his hands back into his pockets and cracked his neck before he went off on his own. If Naruto was going to insist on being so boring, he had no reason to stick around, "You'd better get used to this." Berserker said in parting, "YOMI isn't anything like Ragnarok was. As strong as I am, Odin and Kensei-sama say that many of them are even stronger than me… for now. And with who Kensei-sama says Shirahama's masters are, and what you did against the ninja kid that stopped me you've got bulls-eyes right on your foreheads."

Naruto didn't even bother to make sure he left before he took off to try and find somewhere nearby that could help. Ryouzanpaku was way too far away to go to, and the hospital would still take too long. Putting shoes to the pavement he tore through the streets in search of some place to put her.

It was a good thing his speed running motion was so smooth, otherwise this would have been a far more uncomfortable trip for Freya than it already was, "*cough* Why did you come back Uzumaki?"

With the shallow, short breaths she had to give between every few syllables she used even in that sentence? Yeah, something in there was definitely hurt.

"Because you took the wrong bag." Naruto replied, eyes set dead-ahead to focus on his single-direction speed. There was only really one place close where he could do any good. A dojo like the one Freya's grandfather had would most likely have painkillers to help her take complete breaths and wrappings to protect her injuries, "If I take you home to your grandpa will he beat the crap out of me with his staff again?"

"He only hit you a few times the first time."

"…So am I still a kid now?"

"If you weren't *cough*, you wouldn't have to ask."

"Damn it."

* * *

**That's what I've got for you now you guys. Applied for a pretty decent real job at a TV station, and I'm just waiting back to see if I got it after the interview.**

**I'm not holding my breath though. Even though it's at a pretty small market TV station, 30 people are gunning for it apparently, so I'm not holding my breath on getting this one. It's an hour and a half away from where I live too, and while that doesn't bother me after commuting 40 miles every single day for the last two years, it'll probably be a big factor in whether or not I get hired.**

**I need a job with some decent pay since I need to start paying back loans in six months… and I need to buy a PS4 when it comes out… and I need to fix my car… and I'm sick of not having anything to eat in my house. I get like one actual meal a day. Really getting tired of that.**

**It's hard for someone to take you seriously in training when your stomach growls during spars.**


	19. The Chinese Connection

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I could really go for some beef jerky right now, but being broke I can't afford the good stuff. You need money to be a beef jerky snob. Sometimes I think it would be cheaper to be addicted to drugs.

**Chapter 19: The Chinese Connection**

* * *

A loud yawn freed itself from Naruto's mouth before he got back to the all-important business of getting the hell out of school. The season for cross-country had ended, thus he had no more club activity to bind him to the place after classes had let out. By virtue of this, he was going to ensure that his new group of comrades were all better after the ninja incident was over with and done.

Walking down the street en route to a place he was requested to go to meet up with many of his other friends, he endeavored to go and visit Freya later to make sure she was recovering well from her injuries suffered from Berserker two days ago.

It turned out that in addition to a few broken ribs, Berserker had cracked her sternum. Nasty.

He tried to show up the day before, but the Valkyries still didn't like him and sort of blamed him for their leader being hurt, and as much as he could have just beat them up, he really didn't want to hurt all of that pretty… again.

Oh so much pretty in one place, even if they were apparently card-carrying members of the She-Woman Man Haters Club. Tenten was invited to visit before he even was. And Kugatachi Danki was doing his whole senile act, so they would be receiving no admonishment from him without ample reason.

Naruto didn't really blame Freya's granddad either. The Valkyrie girls waited on him hand and foot out of respect. Why would he mess that up just for some raggedy blond kid that he'd only met twice? He wasn't actively perving on them like Ma Kensei or Jiraiya would have, he was just reaping the rewards of decades of hard-earned respect.

Play on old man.

"I wish I had game like that." Naruto said to himself as he walked down the street, enjoying the day.

"Game like what Naruto-kun?"

He'd forgotten for a second that he had company. Namely in the form of one Fuurinji Miu who had been rather 'sticky' for the last few days. Normally she'd be more concerned with Kenichi because he was the one that usually needed it, but something had piqued her interest in him.

The 'ninja night' thing was all in the past. Thirteen days in the past actually. But there was still extenuating fallout from that accursed incident, namely Miu picking up on signs of Naruto's remorse after being informed about it, and subtly wanting to find out what Naruto was remorseful about.

If she flat-out asked him though, she knew it would push him away, so that was the absolute last thing she was going to do, so she figured if she hung out around him long enough, eventually she'd learn.

Back to the point at hand, Naruto didn't necessarily want to come out and say that he had been thinking about possibly being able to woo several older women at once, "I'm just talking gibberish. Hey, I think we're here."

'Here' was a dilapidated apartment building behind a stone wall entrance with tons of younger adults working outside moving things in and out and trying to spruce up the exterior. Upon seeing Naruto, many of them shouted out in acknowledgment of Naruto's position in the Shade Alliance.

"You're popular." Miu pointed out with a smile as they entered through the front into a main hall sort of area, "Wow. Where is this place?" She asked Naruto, getting a confused shrug from him.

"Dunno. I just got a message from Niijima, Takeda, and Ukita to come to this place." Naruto said, bringing up the messages and the address that each of them had in them, "Come on, let's go see if we can find any of 'em here."

Miu pointed to a room off to the side where she could hear sounds of exertion and found a makeshift training area where everyone was getting a workout in, "Ha, this is actually kind of nice." If you could get past how ghetto some of the things were, yes. For teenagers that didn't have money it _was_ impressive.

Naruto grinned as he walked over to Ukita bench pressing heavy jugs attached to a bar, "Hah, what's up with this place you guys?"

"Shade Alliance… hideout." Ukita said in between reps as he continued to lift, "Welcome you guys. Cool right?"

"There's a hideout now?" Naruto asked, actually pretty stunned by that turn of events, letting Miu see just how affected he was by it, "A few weeks ago we were still using the physics room in school."

Elsewhere in the room, Takeda was pounding away on a heavy bag with gusto, "We're bigger now. After the battle at the truck depot, everyone left of Kisara's gang joined up with us after we stopped Loki's ambush. Kisara included."

"This is actually her hideout from Ragnarok." Siegfried commented, entering his bit into the conversation, "We're refurbishing it and renovating it for the needs of the Shade Alliance!"

Miu raised an eyebrow and tapped her chin in thought, "Wouldn't that be way more expensive to do than any group of high school kids could afford?" She asked. Being the only person at Ryouzanpaku that was ever concerned with finances, she had a penchant for knowing how much certain things would cost by scale, including things like this.

"My dear, there's no price too high for the glory of my demon king and his noble alliance!" Siegfried exclaimed, "What say you Commander Uzumaki?"

In a side area, practicing her targeting safely, Tenten blocked a laugh, "Yeah _commander_, what do you think?" Naruto, considered a commander? What was the world coming to?

Naruto just stared before slowly giving him a thumbs up, prompting him to spin and sing in happiness of his opinion being validated. The resident ninja slowly backed out of the training room back into the main hall where he saw people moving a couch into the building, "Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru seemed to be dead asleep on the very couch that others were carrying in. In his defense he'd been in fear of super-strong hobos squatting in their backyard for the last few days, so some slack could be cut in regards to his choice of napping spots.

Man, he had some serious respect amongst the Shade Alliance members if they were completely cool with carrying him around on a couch. The movers set it on the floor, temporarily jostling him from his slumber, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be reestablished within seconds.

"Uzumaki." Naruto turned around to find Kisara standing there addressing him. She also spared Miu a glance and a nod, "Dairy Cow." Miu gave her a stiff smile and cracked the knuckles on one hand in a subtle warning, "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you both. I wanted to thank the two of you."

Miu could only assume she meant keeping her from being killed from Ino's poisonous sneak attack during the battle with the ninjas, "Of course. I couldn't let anything bad happen to you like that."

On the other hand, Naruto didn't have any idea what he did for Kisara worth being thanked, "Uh, yo. No idea what I'm being thanked for here." He'd accept it of course, he just would have liked to know what the point of it was, "You're welcome for whatever it is though."

"Idiot." Kisara muttered before flicking Naruto's ear, eliciting a yelp out of him as she got down to the point of her gratitude, "Thanks for saving Freya-chan from that asshole Berserker the other night. She's a really important person to me."

"Meh, don't worry about it." Naruto replied, grinning with a squint to his eyes, "I never hated you Ragnarok guys. I didn't like a lot of you at first, but I never hated any of you." He didn't really hate anyone. Not yet anyway, "Besides, she's the reason Neji didn't catch me totally off-guard and kill me without a trace so I owed her."

Well Ragnarok was done with anyway, and really she hadn't felt the bite to keep coming after them after Naruto had defeated her, "You're a strange bunch. We fight you, and you're nicer to us about it than other members of Ragnarok were to each other normally."

Over on a couch, Shikamaru spoke up since he could clearly hear the conversation, "By the way, Ragnarok is a pretty stupid name for a group anyway." He pointed out, sitting up over the back of the chair to stare at everyone else, "Sure it sounds cool, but does anyone even know what Ragnarok means?"

"You do?" Kisara asked before looking over at Naruto, "Who is this guy again?"

"My roommate." Naruto answered, "If he says anything he probably knows what he's talking about though."

"Ragnarok is like the Norse version of the end of the world." Shikamaru explained, lying back down on the couch with his eyes closed, "Everything dies at the end of it in one big battle, especially all of the gods that most of you are named after. So it's kind of dumb. Just saying."

The smartass snarker in him wanted to meet the leader of Ragnarok just to get the chance to throw that little tidbit of info in his face, but apparently Ragnarok had broken up. Also, he wasn't too keen on getting killed by someone that strong in a fight all so he could insult the name of the organization he'd formed.

Kisara being reminded about Ragnarok's demise remembered just why it had come to an end, and what was important about it, "Look, Shirahama did pretty damn good in that fight with the ninja-claws guy, and I guess I don't have any reason to hide things now."

Whenever someone said that, something about it boded ill for the people it was directed at in some way.

"You guys don't know much about YOMI." She continued to say, "But before I talk about that, there's something you need to know."

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Kenichi – Kouryo High School)

While Miu and Naruto left school on this day, Kenichi remained behind to spend a bit of time at the Gardening Club. He had missed it for a while, so showing up for a bit was overdue for him. Nothing calmed him down when dealing with his hellish training like gently tending to plants.

He needed it after what his masters had him exercising on now. Hearing about Naruto's yamikeigo training gave Akisame some inspiration, so he built a 'fighting machine' in a dark cave on Ryouzanpaku's property to help Kenichi develop his senses, his Seikuken, and his understanding of fighting on in desperate situations.

Hours and hours in a dark hole, getting beaten up on any given side by Akisame's devilish creation of torment. Some of this stuff had to be illegal to do to other people.

So with that waiting on him once he got back to Ryouzanpaku, he was perfectly content with staying after school around nice safe plants that wouldn't hook him up to dangerous machines, or forcefully adjust his movements with bamboo poles, or entice him to work harder by using fire.

It would have been heaven on earth if not for-.

"Kenichi my friend, you've got to come and see the setup for the Shade Alliance." Niijima crowed proudly, slapping Kenichi on the back as the latter tended to some sensitive plants, "With Ragnarok falling apart, and with us picking up most of the Fists except for the Three of Card and Hermit, we've got the chops of the top fighter group in town. None of it would've been possible without you."

Kenichi wasn't certain that he was supposed to feel a lot of pride from that. Still though, it wasn't like the people forming the group were bad. Thor and Siegfried were proving to be good people, and Ukita and Takeda had long since proven that they were wonderful individuals. Kisara was rather prickly, but hey he could deal with that.

These were people that could be friends. They were comrades at the very least already after everything that had happened and the results of it.

"Besides, I've got some of our guys with ears to the street saying that there's a new problem coming your way called YOMI."

Hearing Niijima bring up that something else was coming at him, made Kenichi slowly turn to him with a dead look in his eyes, "…What?"

"Odin, Berserker, and Hermit moved on to this group; YOMI." Niijima informed him quietly, "Remember that Ragnarok was poised to take them on. Well with Ragnarok gone that left a vacuum of power in regards to fighter groups. And the weaklings and posers are dwindling down rapidly. Eventually they'll give us a try as well, and when the time comes I'm expecting you to do your stuff. You are the number one disciple in history after all!"

Why? Why was this happening again? Oh man. He wanted to learn how to fight to keep from getting beaten up in Karate Club and wound up in a feud with Ragnarok. He wanted to support his best friend against killer ninjas and got himself cut up in a fight with one. The Ragnarok thing died down, and now an even stronger group was going to fight now.

When did it end? Would it ever end?

God, if it wasn't so unmanly to do so when faced with a challenge he could have cried, 'No…' Kenichi thought to himself languidly, 'I'm starting to get really disturbed at how intense some of these fights are getting to be.'

Like a ghost he almost floated out of the greenhouse and around the school, hearing Niijima call out to him as he left, "Make sure you come and check out that address I gave you! The Assault Commander has to know about where his own base is after all! You've got support you know!"

Eventually, he found his way up to the roof of the school without even knowing where his feet were taking him. As he reached the roof he walked over to the safety fence and sighed as he stared out over the neighborhood.

He knew he had fortified himself to stay the course of martial arts, but at some point he had to catch a break and get a lull in the action. The world couldn't possibly keep throwing dangerous fighter after dangerous fighter at him.

Then again, it was a pretty big place.

Turning back around to the stairwell, he felt that he could see a figure lying down on top of it. Squinting, he walked closer and climbed his way up the ladder to the higher level to see Tanimoto lying down staring up at the sky, "Tanimoto-kun?"

"Hello there." Tanimoto said, turning his head to the side to smile at Kenichi, "How's it going? I've heard about Ragnarok falling apart. Congratulations."

"Congratulations on surviving?" He said, reaching the elevated level of the roof, "Sometimes that's what it felt like I did."

Sitting up, the ace actor of the school laughed at the self-deprecating response, "Don't be that way. You've become a big deal around here you know. That's a big change from the start of the term isn't it? You're strong."

"Ah, well… err." Kenichi's sheepish reaction at being declared strong eventually had to take a backseat when his phone went off. Fishing it out, he found that it was Miu contacting him and hastily took the call, "Hello, Miu-san?"

"_Kenichi-kun there's something you need to know, and it's about Tanimoto-san."_ She seemed quite anxious from the sound of her voice over the line, _"Kisara is here with us, and apparently Thor and Siegfried are confirming it for us. It turns out that Hermit was promoted to Fourth Fist before it all ended and the rest of Ragnarok folded into YOMI. Now he's with them."_

"Uh huh." Kenichi said, turning around for a little semblance of some sort of privacy. The sound of the call was able to drift over to Tanimoto as his gaze sharpened on Kenichi's back, "So he got stronger. Strong enough to move up and get accepted to the stronger group."

As alarming as it was that he actually had to fight against the angry guy in the cloak, it wasn't something that couldn't have waited until later when he got back to the dojo?

"_Yes, but here's the thing that's actually important."_ As Miu spoke, Kenichi could hear the chatter of others in the background such as Naruto, loudly ranting about something. Whatever it was, he sounded pissed off, _"…It turns out that Tanimoto Natsu is Hermit."_

The expression on Kenichi's face took on one of shock and froze stiff, the rest of his body following suit as he slowly turned around to Tanimoto, sitting down and chuckling to himself, "…Really now?" Kenichi said to Miu over the phone, "That's interesting. Um, I'm going to have to call you back Miu-san."

"_Kenichi!"_ Naruto's voice butted in over the line, _"Hey! Make sure you talk to Kensei when we get back to the dojo tonight, 'cuz apparently that guy uses Chinese Kenpo too, and he'll kill you when he beats you- OW! I mean _if_ he beats you. Don't want to be caught slipping or anything, right?"_

"Yeah, for sure." Kenichi said in a fluttery voice as he shakily held his phone, "Well… bye." With that, he ended the call and took a deep breath, "…Tanimoto-kun."

"Yeah Shirahama?" Wow, now even the way he was speaking to Kenichi was different. There wasn't the slightest bit of cordiality in his voice. Even his eyes seemed to become angrier, "Something you want to ask me?"

Kenichi slowly started backing away and climbed his way down the ladder once more, "I've got to go now. Yeah."

"I'm sure you do."

"So I'll see you around." Kenichi said, his eyes stopping as the last thing peering over the ledge just in case Tanimoto attacked. He did not. He just glared the spirit right out of Kenichi, "…See you later." Footsteps rapidly followed as Kenichi bailed back downstairs and away from the rooftop.

Tanimoto just laughed to himself before stopping with a sneer in the direction that Kenichi had left and hightailed it in, "That's the guy that's partially responsible for busting up Ragnarok."

He wasn't going to fight him on the roof with no preparation to keep others from seeing them. After all, he loved leading people on too much as the school's most popular do-good student to throw that all away by taking Kenichi out on the roof, as satisfying as it would have been. There was a better place for that meeting.

XxX

(That Night – Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Dojo Building)

"A Chinese Kenpo fighter eh?" Ma Kensei said after hearing what he had been told by Kenichi, Naruto, and Miu of just what had transpired this day in regards to an enemy, "And I assume that you don't have any idea of particularly what style he specializes in?"

A round of head-shakes all around. They hadn't seen Hermit fight before.

Really, Kensei had refrained from teaching Kenichi any particular form of Chinese Kenpo, instead having him learn techniques and concepts from all different styles. So far it had been working superbly, and the other masters had been mixing their training and technique philosophies into his learning as well, so it wasn't really a matter of overwhelming him by splitting his attention.

He hadn't broken or been destroyed by all of the clashing styles mashing together inside of his mind and body yet, so on went the show!

"You guys have crappy timing." Kenichi said to Miu and Naruto with a sigh, "He was right there when you called me to tell me that. What would have happened if he attacked me in school?"

"It's not like we haven't had to fight at school before." Naruto rebutted before getting a down-in-the-dumps feeling himself, "Damn Tanimoto. I thought that guy was cool. He could have taken on any of us any time he wanted. So what the hell?"

He was around quite a bit. So much so that they considered him a friend in school despite the fact that he wasn't a fighter.

Tanimoto had his pick of the litter when it came to taking the time to weed them out. Why he hadn't gotten to it was beyond Naruto. Perhaps the ninja episode kept him from making his move sooner than he otherwise would have. Eh, he didn't know. He wasn't in the guy's head.

It was kind of impressive really. Naruto had never been good at deceiving enemies to their faces, so his first reaction was to be angry. He really couldn't be, as Ino had pulled the same ploy in school herself.

That was probably what stopped Tanimoto from making any moves sooner come to think of it.

Kensei chuckled to himself and stood up with a sly smile on his face, "Well if you don't know which form of Chinese Kenpo your opponent is using, we'll just have to drill as much of it that I haven't touched on yet into your head as we can."

"…You can do that?" Kenichi asked as Naruto sat there with his mouth open. He was going to give him a crash course on _every_ form he could with whatever time they had? That couldn't even be possible. Not with the hundreds of forms of Chinese Kenpo that existed, "I mean, I know you're a master but-."

"I am the master of all forms of Chinese Kenpo." Kensei declared none too humbly, "Preparation is key, and there's no time like the present to get started, shall we Kenichi?"

"Do I have to go back into the cave anytime soon?"

"No. I'm certain we can work with Akisame and reason with him that furthering your Kung Fu at the moment is crucial with how close the enemy is to you on a daily basis."

That sounded good to Kenichi, all things considered. In a heartbeat he got up to his feet and bowed deeply to his master, "Yes Ma-sifu." No wicked exercises, just learning how to deal with a fighter using Chinese Kenpo instead of learning the moves himself.

"Good!" A bit of a sadistic glint came to Kensei's eye underneath the brim of his hat, "We'll start with preparing you for taking on hard styles, since your opponent is probably going to be trying to kill you."

"Say what now?"

"You should be attentive. Since I'm using hard styles there's a chance I could kill you."

In this stretch of time, Miu and Naruto had managed to ease out of the dojo without making a sound or letting Kenichi know that they'd left. Miu wanted to get started on dinner for the denizens of the dojo and Naruto just didn't want to watch Kenichi get his ass kicked until he started figuring out how to work against Kung Fu users.

Come to think of it, he might have had his own way to help out in that front.

"Are you going to be staying for dinner tonight?" Miu asked as they walked across the lawn and ignored the sounds of Kenichi's torment and Kensei's instructive remarks to teach him from, "Or will you be going back home?"

"Your cooking is better than anything I can get from home." Naruto admitted as he unintentionally escorted Miu to the kitchen, "But I don't want to get in the way or anything. I think I'll head on back in just a bit."

"You have to get home?" Miu didn't see that as something that could happen. Sure, the sun was going down, but saying that a ninja had a curfew was a laughable thing to suggest.

"No, not really." Tenten was visiting Freya with Kisara, and Shikamaru was probably asleep in the park after beating the old men that go there at shogi or something like that, "It's just, well I'm in the way aren't I?"

Miu pouted at Naruto and turned her head away from him to mask her irritation, "You can't still be thinking that you're not one of us here. Naruto-kun those missions of yours were a long time ago." In reality they were about five months ago, but with everything that had happened it had been a while, "You know you can talk to us about anything right? I know Shigure-san is your mast-… well, your 'not-master', but everyone here would listen if there was something you wanted to say."

And there it was. She had to go for it, and find out if there really was something weighing on Naruto's mind.

Naruto just felt a weight drop in his stomach and opened the door to the building they were heading for, gesturing for Miu to go inside first, "I'll think about that. Really. Don't worry about stuff so much Miu-chan." The sound of the conversation was blanketed by the sounds of Kenichi's training in the dojo, "If you want to worry, worry about that."

'Well, it wasn't like he clammed up.' Miu thought to herself, breaking her frown to give him a slight smile as she entered, "I think it would be nice if you stayed." She said in parting.

As she left, Naruto backed away and sighed until he bumped into someone standing behind him. A girl or woman, because by now in life he knew when he had run into boobs first, "…You know, this sneaking up on me stuff isn't gonna last forever right?"

Shigure just walked past him and gestured for him to follow her, "Come… with me."

XxX

(Five Minutes Later)

Since when did they have a hot spring? That didn't even make any sense. People didn't just have springs on their property ripe for discovery. What kind of probability did it require to make that sort of thing happen?

But alas, this was where Naruto sat, in a hot spring, doing his damndest to keep his back to his weaponry teacher who didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest at sharing the bath with him.

This never left the dojo. Jiraiya could never find out about this or he'd never let it die. Hell, this never left the spring. Thank goodness Kensei was busy beating fundamental Chinese Kenpo defense into Kenichi, or else that man would probably be skulking around somewhere, looking to take some candid shots of his master.

'I mean not-master. Shigure ain't my master.' Naruto thought to himself, keeping his body buried in the water up over his neck, 'Ninjas don't have masters.' Shigure was more or less right next to him, bathing herself without a care.

"You don't need to hide the scar." Shigure said to him, recognizing why he kept himself submerged so heavily, and possibly why he kept his back turned, "I saw the wound after Apachai first gave it to you… years ago. It can't be comfortable sitting like that."

What isn't comfortable is being sixteen and sharing a hot spring with one's smoking hot sensei. But he heeded the request and straightened himself out enough that his upper torso and the mark of battle on his body became visible. He could see Tochumaru swimming around in the spring as he sat and rested. That mouse was weird. He was an awesome pet though,"Why am I here?"

"Shhh." She said, forcing the two of them to bask in silence for a few more seconds until speaking up, "That person, Berserker, that you saved the Freya girl from. If you fought him as you are now, you would have lost that night."

What? That was impossible.

At this, Naruto had no qualms about turning around to confront Shigure on this matter, "Are you kidding me?" He asked, whipping around and caring nothing for the woman's state of undress.

Shigure just shook her head. She had been dead serious in her observation and estimation of what may have happened.

"Yeah, he's tougher than nails and from what Kaname-chan said he can take an asskicking, but I'm stronger than him. I know I am." There wasn't anything she could say to Naruto that would convince him otherwise, "I know I'm cocky as hell and say that a lot about people I might fight, but I mean it."

After what he'd done… there's no way a guy like that was stronger than him.

A person that didn't even have to train in order to be powerful enough to fight and beat someone as talented as Freya. Someone gifted with the talent that Berserker had, and someone that didn't even care about it. Someone that neglected just what you could do with that talent.

It was more than just Berserker's cavalier attitude at hurting others weaker than him that pissed Naruto off. It was this as well. A person like that didn't have to try in order to be good. He had to destroy his body for an entire decade, and here he was being told that he would have lost if he'd fought him the other night? What the hell was all of the training and hard work for then?

Shigure didn't react visibly to what Naruto said, she merely reached out and put a hand on his cheek, "A man like that wouldn't allow himself to be defeated. If you hit him in a way that would debilitate any other opponent and convince them to stay down, he would get up." She explained to him, "This is a general trait of Dou-ki martial artists, such as yourself."

Especially ones that couldn't control it and had particularly explosive power and tempers to match.

"I'm Dou?"

"You didn't know?"

"No. They just teach us about ki during training. They don't teach us how to use it."

That was advanced training that ninjas were supposed to get into only after they survived as genin for a while and proved to be useful enough to pass the secrets of ninja ki manipulation down to. But finding out he was Dou-based was a surprise to Naruto. He wondered how Shigure knew such a thing and seemed so absolutely certain about it.

She didn't dwell on it though, as if it wasn't her place to get into it. Instead she got back to her point about Berserker, "How do you defeat an opponent out for your blood that you can't knock out or otherwise subdue? From what I know of that person, this is what you would have to face. You conventionally don't… have one-hit finishing power, and chokes aren't your strong suit."

What was she saying?

"Your heart." Shigure reached down and pressed the palm of her hand against the left side of Naruto's chest, "It keeps you from fighting the way you normally do. You have hesitation in your attacks. I can see it when you spar. If you fought a serious opponent, you wouldn't fight them with your full power behind your attacks. You're afraid. Tell me why."

Naruto's expression saddened when he realized that this conversation stopped being about fighting someone like Berserker.

This probably hadn't ever been about that. If Miu was barking up the tree that he had something to get off of his chest, it probably meant that those more perceptive than her had already picked up on exactly what it was.

He didn't want to lie to Shigure, and he didn't want to hide something like this from her either. It would eat him alive.

Naruto slowly reached up and took Shigure's hand off of his chest, looking down at the water as he did so, "I… I think you already know what I'm about to say to you, but you deserve to hear it from me. So here we go." He had to hold off for a moment to keep from hyperventilating, "That night when I came back from the mountains, I went to fight one of the ninjas, Hyuuga Neji, and-." Deep gulp of trepidation, "-I killed him during the fight."

God, that felt like cutting off a limb to say. But it felt like something of a weight had been lifted from him as well.

Still though, this place was Katsujinken to the core, and him admitting that he'd ended someone's life couldn't have given him a situation that would have punched his ticket out of there faster.

"I caught him with his guard down and got him with my strongest attack on an organ." Naruto continued to say, "He talked to me a bit after it was over, but he didn't get back up. He didn't last for three minutes after it landed."

Still, Shigure didn't say anything to him. She simply listened to everything he had to say until she was certain that he had finished.

However, upon finishing, Naruto waded his way to the side of the spring and gathered his clothes up to go ahead and leave, "I'm sorry. But I told you I'm not Katsujinken, and I'm not Satsujinken either. I do believe there's a reason to kill some people, but I won't do it just because I can. Killing Neji wasn't the reason I fought him, but it happened. So I guess I'll go."

He didn't even manage to get out of the water before Shigure's voice stopped him.

"No. Don't… go."

Naruto stayed still per her request. As he had already affirmed to himself long before, he would do almost anything that she asked of him.

"You say you aren't Satsujinken." Shigure said to him, finally finding the words to speak, "You follow your… own path. But it will be hard to maintain without falling into the darkness. All I want is for you to remember how you feel about what happened to Hyuuga Neji… whenever you feel the need to resort to lethal force. I cannot train you if I know that you'll use what I teach you to kill."

"I promise." Naruto told her, completely serious in his approach, "Neji was my enemy, but he wasn't evil. I feel like I did what I had to, but I'm sorry about it, about how he died."

Alone in the dark, with no one but the man that struck the fatal blow there to witness it or comfort him in the slightest. And the worse thing about it was how accepting of it all he was. As if it couldn't have happened any other way. That would always stick with Naruto, no matter what.

"My old man always used to say that the moment you stop feeling remorse for the people that die around you, it's time to get out." Naruto told Shigure, "Because you might be a ninja, but you definitely ain't a man anymore. You're a monster."

To Naruto, his dad was so cool. And this was one of the things that he always remembered him saying when he would visit those rare times when it was allowed on the Homeland Island.

"_The one thing worse than causing death is to avert your eyes from it. Look straight at the people you kill Naruto. Don't take your eyes off of them for a second. And don't ever forget them, because I promise that they won't ever forget you."_

Shigure walked past him to leave the spring, brushing her hand across his face again as she did, "You don't fear death, but I want you to respect it. Your martial arts, it depends all on why you wish to use them. All martial arts destroy, but it's what you do with them that matters. Do you fight because you want to cause others pain?" Naruto shook his head, "Then you will be fine."

"But… but-."

"The manriki-gusari is a ninja tool… later adopted by imperial police to defeat armed criminals in a non-lethal manner. It surprised me that it was the first choice of a ninja to wish to learn."

Shigure dried herself off the entire time she said these things to him and redressed herself before departing through the foliage surrounding the area, only stopping to turn and conclude with one last thing to him.

"That's why I know you are a good boy. Just be careful."

Naruto just kept his eyes on her until she had fully departed. At that point he slowly fell back and landed flat in the water where he floated along the surface just staring up at the night sky. This place was giving him ulcers.

Turning his head to the side he watched Tochumaru float on past him and just stared right back up into the air with a sigh.

Shigure had given him a warning in so many words, and damn it, he really didn't want to disappoint her, "I can't be a ninja and be Katsujinken." Naruto said to the absent Shigure, "They'll kill me. They'll kill Kenichi and Miu-chan. They'll find out about Shikamaru and Tenten. And maybe they'll send someone good enough to kill you one day." The thought made him close his eyes as he drifted, "But I'll keep what you said in mind, my not-sensei."

Because very few people in his life believed in him after his family died, and he didn't want to let her down.

XxX

(The Next Day – Yokohama – Chinatown District)

After school, the first thing Naruto did was grab Kenichi and Miu and drag them off to catch the train to Yokohama Chinatown. He was feeling much more enthusiastic instead of just going through the motions of happiness, and it reflected on his friends.

Kenichi was excited because Naruto seemed to be excited. Miu was happy because whatever had been plaguing Naruto before seemed to be a legitimate nonfactor now.

Looking over to his side as Miu seemed to beam at being out away from the dojo in the daytime, Kenichi blushed slightly at just how at peace she looked, "Ah, you don't get out of town much, do you Miu-san?"

"Hm?" Miu turned his way in response to his question, getting his face to redden at the attention, "Well, not in a few years, no. But I kind of got my fill of travelling back when grandfather took me with him all over the world on his missions."

So while a trip out to Chinatown was very nice for her to take, it was far and away from the most exotic place that she'd ever been to in her life. It was a quaint little daytrip though.

Meanwhile, Naruto was grumbling to himself about a stark lack of fireworks carts out in broad daylight. They had served to be very useful in combat, and he wanted more for appropriate use; business before getting to the fun and all.

Oh well. They weren't important, but it was always nice to have an abundance of dangerous yet legal pyrotechnics in his possession.

"Where to?" Miu asked him, tapping Naruto on the shoulder in the midst of his disgruntled searching on a street corner, "You said we came here to see a friend right? Someone to help Kenichi get used to fighting against Chinese Kenpo?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, remembering his bearings from the last time he'd been in Chinatown, "We met back when Sakaki dragged me here for one of his missions not too long ago. Right before the whole ninja mess started. It didn't go so well, but I made a friend!" And they weren't far from the only place that he knew of to search for her.

"How come we haven't met this person before then?" Kenichi asked. He met Naruto's other friends. Perhaps this was another rogue ninja? "Is this another thing like with Shikamaru or Tenten?"

"No, Renka's not a ninja." Naruto said before grinning as he remembered something about her, "She's Kensei's daughter actually." Which was why Naruto didn't say a word to anyone about his plan. Renka wanted to find him, and he clearly didn't want to be found. It was best to keep that ace in the hole for a bit.

"Ma-sifu has a daughter?" Kenichi squawked in disbelief. No wonder Naruto figured that coming to this place could help him with his Chinese Kenpo. Any child of Ma Kensei had to be absolutely splendid at fighting by default, "Really? That guy, the biggest pervert we know, actually got a woman to… you know, with him?"

"They say there's someone for everyone." Miu said with an awkward bit of a smile, "I guess it's true."

"Apparently." The blond ninja muttered before bringing up something else, "And Kensei isn't the biggest perv _I_ know. Until he makes Kenichi do a training exercise called 'grope the breast' for most of a week, he ain't the biggest perv I know."

Miu and Kenichi both recoiled in tandem at that blatant declaration and looked at each other, red-faced as they did so, 'Is he serious?'

"Hmm…" Naruto really had to stop and think about it for a moment. With only a week of interaction with Jiraiya to go by, Naruto had a rather limited sample size to compare with, "Actually, I'd have to have spent more time around Ero-sennin to know for sure."

Their walk didn't take much longer as Naruto located the Chinese restaurant with a renovated storefront and a refurbished interior after the explosion that destroyed much of it during his last visit.

Upon entering, Naruto looked around and saw the patrons of the establishment eating and one of the two young disciples of Ma Ryou as the greeter by the front; the brown-haired one with the glasses and suspenders Shokatsu Koan, "Koan, hey!"

Looking upon Naruto after his entry, Koan shook in a bit of terror, "H-Hey Naruto. Ah, is Master Sakaki around?" He clearly hadn't forgotten about the unfortunate happening that had occurred the last time Naruto had been in town, "Please say no."

"No, he's not. Don't worry." Naruto said, putting a hand on the young man's shoulder, "I totally understand, and I'm still kind of sorry about that." It was a dual misunderstanding, but Koan and Genson paid for it way more than Naruto and Sakaki did that night, "I just came by to say hey, so… hey."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Koan moved from behind the greeter's podium. He didn't dislike Naruto despite their first meeting. If nothing else, Naruto was the one that apologized for the injuries dealt by Sakaki despite the fact that he himself never even threw a punch their way.

"Yeah, Chinatown's kind of out of the way for you isn't it?" Koan said, noticing that Naruto had more company this time, "Who are they?" Most notably, who was the very pretty girl? He didn't really care that much about the other fellow, "Actually… who's _she_?" He ignored Naruto's roll of the eyes and muttered to him, "…You're just lucky Genson is waiting right now or he'd be all over her."

Kenichi heard that and he felt a touch of irritation. What kind of place was this? And where was that Renka person Naruto had been talking about seeing?

"I really like this restaurant." Miu remarked after having a moment to look around, "The atmosphere is so calm… relaxing."

"You jerk!"

And there went that feeling, right out of the window.

"Five-four-three-two-!" Naruto counted down rapidly before ducking a metal tray getting winged at his head. It flew past him, forcing Kenichi to catch it with his bare hands or eat it himself, "Oi, I thought we were past this already!"

Lowering the platter, Kenichi saw an exceptionally pretty girl wearing a somewhat skimpy red Chinese dress with bells in her hair behind her ears, 'Wow. Naruto knows a girl like this?' Unfortunately Miu caught him staring.

"I'm sure with a little more mental effort you can will that dress into a wardrobe malfunction Kenichi-san." Miu said in a usually chipper way, though the frosty undercurrent wasn't lost on him. Her tone had been much less familiar than it usually was.

It wasn't his fault that the girl was lovely.

Meanwhile…

"Don't you give me that! You know what you did!" Renka rebutted to Naruto's earlier remark, walking her way to the front of the restaurant at an increasingly quick pace until she saw Naruto take off running outside. Her eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment or two before she felt inexplicably compelled to chase after him.

Naruto didn't know it, while Renka barely did, but she had a fancy for chasing things.

Miu and Kenichi cleared out of the way for self-preservation purposes as she pursued Naruto out of the door, "What the hell?" Kenichi wondered, "Naruto doesn't run away from any-. Well yes, he does run from stuff." A lot of stuff, "But Naruto doesn't run that easily!"

"Naruto ran because he knows better than to risk standing in front of Renka-oujo." Koan said, a bit uncomfortable at the scene playing out in the restaurant where he worked, "He should have known better than to just run though." At least nothing got broken this time.

"So much for being friends…" Miu said as she started out onto the street to see just what was going on.

XxX

Outside, Naruto took off down the street and actually made it two blocks before realizing that Renka was actually chasing after him and catching up, "Shit!" He yelled to himself, picking up the pace as he started to reach into his backpack for his grappling hook, "Off the ground! Gotta get off the ground! Where the hell'd I put it!?"

"Was he always this fast?" Renka thought aloud as she saw Naruto turn on the figurative afterburners to put some more distance between the two of them. The way he ran now was extremely different. Instead of pumping his arms the way he had been he simply bent his body far forward, arms behind him at his sides as he threw all of his balance ahead of him.

It was while they were in the midst of this that Naruto came to think of something extremely relevant to the situation.

"…Wait, why am I running?" Thinking aloud on that note, Naruto slid to a stop on the sidewalk and extended his hand behind him in a halting gesture while taking a deep breath, "STOOOOOOOOP!"

His forceful shout and corresponding gesture to go along with it actually got Renka to slow up and discontinue her pursuit without any kind of fuss. She actually seemed a bit confused at just what had occurred, "…Why are we out here?"

Naruto lowered his hand and unstiffened his posture to one slightly more relaxed, "B-Because you started chasing me." Naruto stammered out. It was sort of a reflex of his to try and get to a more open area when he felt things might become hostile. Unlike Shikamaru, he defended himself better in open environments of course, "Why'd you chase me?"

"Because you started running." Renka said, remembering the chain of events that led to all of this but neglecting to mention that she had a penchant for pursuing fleeing objects, "Why did you run?"

Alright, that was just enough of the shtick, "Because you threw a tray at my head and stomped over like you wanted to fight! So why'd ya do that ya crazy chick!?"

Ahh, now she remembered why she was pissed off at the first sight of Naruto.

"Because you left the last time without telling me where papa is." She accused of him. Yes, she was much calmer now, but she still had something to be miffed about in her opinion, "Ooh, you knew what you were doing, with all of your sweet talk and your injuries. You were trying to protect papa from having to come back to China with me."

"What?" He wasn't trying to protect anything, especially Ma Kensei. Talk about the last person that would need him of all people to help him, "No I wasn't! How could you even say that?" He had other things on his mind at the time, "There was more important stuff going on at the time, like a guy blowing up your place and almost killing me!"

Naruto didn't sweet talk girls. He didn't even know how to sweet talk girls. Thus the reference to having done so went right over his head.

The very particular voice possessed by one Uzumaki Naruto was very easy to distinguish in the open air for those that had heard it before and knew of him, especially when he was shouting about something, which in this case he definitely was.

It made it rather hard for Miu and Kenichi to locate and catch up to him. He actually didn't run as far as they assumed he would have gone from how he'd booked it from the restaurant, "Naruto-kun!" Miu cried out upon finding Naruto and Renka in the midst of their tiff, "What happened?"

"Nothing." Naruto defended for the sake of keeping the peace. Introductions were in order, "Anyway, this is Ma Renka. Renka, these two are Shirahama Kenichi and Fuurinji Miu-chan."

Renka looked the two of them over as Miu bowed good-naturedly, and Kenichi did as well, just with a bit more trepidation at the crazy girl that had actually forced Naruto of all people to run away, even if it was just down the street.

"Ah… nice to meet you." Renka said, bowing to them shortly before raising her head back up.

Still observing the two of them, Renka looked Kenichi over before not seeing much in him. Miu though, she stopped on and gave a once-over repeatedly, her eye steadily increasing in its rate of twitching.

'She's gorgeous.' She thought to herself before turning back to Naruto. There was no way a girl like that was with the other guy. He was so unremarkable, so that left Naruto, 'So that's how it is.'

"It's nice to meet the daughter of one of our dojo's masters." Miu said cheerfully, "Kenichi trains under your father if we're right in thinking that he's Ma Kensei."

'What?' Renka thought in disbelief, 'How could papa be training this guy?'

Granted he walked like he understood martial arts, but it wasn't the way someone that understood the Chinese Kenpo her father would have taught a student would have moved. It didn't really matter. If she wanted to see if he was full of crap or not she could do that later.

"You're still so weird. Well what did you come all the way out here for?" Renka asked Naruto with her hands on her hips, "Not another mission I hope. The last time you did a lot of stuff got destroyed."

If it was to show off the pretty little girlfriend he had with him she was going to be upset. Damn playboy.

"No, it's nothing like that." Miu asserted lightly for Naruto's sake, "Naruto-kun wanted to come here, to visit with you amongst other things." Firework related things and Kung Fu related things, but what girl wanted to hear that? "He brought us to introduce us."

Really? Naruto came to see _her_ when he had _that_ back at wherever his home was? Renka turned to consider Naruto who was standing there, hands behind his neck and squinting his eyes as he did from time to time.

And then his friends; the completely unassuming guy with the band-aid on his face that was supposedly her father's disciple, and the blonde girl that just plain irked her for some reason. Why, she didn't know, or at least didn't want to accept at the time.

Eventually, Naruto moved forward, lowering his hands from behind his neck to speak somewhat seriously to her, "Renka… I need your help." Her eyes went wide at the prospect of Naruto actually asking her for something, "And by that, I mean Kenichi needs your help."

Renka looked from Naruto to Kenichi, back and forth between the two of them before making a sudden move to strike out and hit Kenichi in the stomach with her palms. To her surprise however, despite the spontaneity of the attack, Kenichi was able to neutralize the quick motion before he realized what he did and backed away, "Ah, I don't fight women, I'm sorry."

"Kenichi-kun's Seikuuken is getting faster to activate." Miu pointed out fondly.

Renka stared before turning back to Naruto sheepishly, apologetic for the rather impulsive attack, "…Sorry. I guess I can help. What do you need?"

XxX

Nearby in Ma Ryou's restaurant, the aftermath from Renka's running out had died down. By now the reputation of the restaurant and the crazy-skilled workers within it were common knowledge to locals, and was something of an attraction to those that weren't.

Either way, things were back to normal again, as black-haired, fashionable Genson was taking a lull in the business to talk with Koan about what had transpired just a few minutes ago, "So Naruto showed up again and Renka-oujo chased him out? Doesn't he know better than to run?"

"Apparently not." Koan said before switching topics, "You really should have seen the girl he had with him though. Man." He then got back into worker-mode upon seeing another potential customer enter the restaurant, "Welcome."

The young man that entered had large round eyes, thick eyebrows, and short black hair frayed to the sides and in the back. He wore black Kung Fu pants and shoes, as well as a cream-colored robe top framed with dark green and held closed with a dark green cloth belt. Over his back he had a small travel bag.

Upon entering, the young man bowed deeply to the two of them, "Hello. Is this where I can find Ma Ryou; renowned master of the Phoenix Alliance? I have a request to ask of him." As he bowed, the fact that his hands were wrapped in bandages were easy to see.

Koan and Genson looked at each other until their master and the proprietor of the eating establishment made his presence known and walked forward, holding his arms in front of him, concealed within his sleeves. Upon seeing Ryou, the young man hurriedly bowed as if he could put even more effort behind the gesture.

Ryou gave him a good-natured smile, noting how respectful he was, "You have something you would like to ask of me young man?"

"My name is Rock Lee." The visitor said, standing straight up from his bow to politely address Ryou, "I have come all the way from the Phoenix Alliance main compound in China for one reason. I was told that this was the place to go."

Both Genson and Koan assumed that he was going to ask for training, and honestly Ryou did as well, "I see. Well what can I do for you?"

A fire came to Lee's eyes and he clutched a fist in front of himself intensely, "I have come here to win the heart of the fair daughter of the Alliance's head. I wish to win the love of Ma Renka!"

"WHAT!?"

At the door of the restaurant, Renka and her Ryouzanpaku visitors froze in place upon hearing the declaration from the strange boy with the massive eyebrows. The girl in question was noticeably disturbed at the thought of anyone potentially winning her.

Of course, Lee didn't see the growing look of agitation on her face. No, he just saw her, "Oh she is still just as beautiful as the day she left to search for Master Kensei." In a flash he was right in front of her, staring uncomfortably close, "Miss Renka I have come all this way for you. If you go out with me I will protect you with my life."

"I don't need anyone to protect me with their life." Renka replied as she moved back away from Lee quickly, positioning herself behind Naruto, who was more than confused at what was going on, "How do you even know who I am?"

"This boy is a pupil of the Phoenix Alliance." Ryou explained to his grandniece and her friends, "Are you sure you've never met him before? He seems to know you very well."

Renka just shook her head from where she had ducked behind Naruto. Not that she was afraid to fight. Not in the slightest. Still, those eyebrows looked like they were alive. And how else were you supposed to respond to some strange kid you had never met declaring his intent to win your love?

Meanwhile, Naruto just looked over at Kenichi and Miu, who were looking at him questioningly. He didn't know what to say. He just thought that bringing them along to Chinatown with him would help Kenichi out with some practical experience. He wasn't expecting any of this.

Kenichi wasn't as caught off-guard as Naruto was though, "Well at least I know that this kind of stuff isn't just exclusive to us."

"Congratulations Renka-san!"

"Don't congratulate me about _this_!"

Lee simply kept staring at her, "You are an angel. Please be my girlfriend."

Renka just hid herself farther behind Naruto, as if she could shrink herself behind him. Why, he didn't know. It wasn't like he was wide enough to easily cover all of her body behind his, "Renka, just tell him no if you don't want to."

"Fine." She replied before speaking to Lee, "Hey, no! I don't date men I've just met!"

"But… but I have known you for years." Lee defended as he made his case, "We trained side by side as disciples for so long. I watched your grace and strength, and I swore to myself that I would be your equal in martial arts, and then your partner in life. It was the only way I could see myself as good enough to love you! You must remember me! I trained as hard as I could every day!"

The romantic in Miu's head was getting all sorts of caught up from his story, "That's so sweet! Training with her day-by-day, just looking to prove that you were worthy of her. That sounds like such a dream!" She could have squealed to herself if it hadn't been unsightly and awkward to do so, "Almost like a real fairy tale."

"I see a parallel there." Kenichi said to himself of himself to Naruto, getting a nod from the latter, "It can't be wrong that I'm rooting for the guy right?"

On the other hand, Renka's mind seemed to be reeling back years and years to try and remember just what in the world he could be talking about. It didn't take long, "Wait a minute, what's wrong with you? You didn't train side-by-side with me!"

Rock Lee's mouth dropped wide open as his shoulders fell, "But… but the magic from our spar. Did you not feel it the way that I did?"

"How could you say that Renka?" Miu said, moving over to console a crestfallen-looking Lee. How cruel could a woman be? "You can forget someone you worked so closely with?"

"There are over 10,000 disciples in the Phoenix Alliance." Renka said, making sure to look Naruto's way to ensure that he wasn't of the same mindset of Miu. Him thinking that she was cruel was something she didn't desire in the slightest.

"10,000!" Kenichi parroted in shock, "That many, training in one place?"

Numerical probability behind her previous statements, Renka nodded and moved from behind Naruto a bit, "If he ever came within 10 feet of me he sure never said anything to me about it. And I _never_ sparred with just one disciple at a time. Mama always made me fight at least three at once and I always fought different people. So if we did spar, there couldn't have been any 'magic'-." She added with air-quotes, "-Because we wouldn't have been alone."

At that, all eyes snapped back to Lee, because that was kind of creepy. Only one person amongst them had the fortitude to call him on it though.

"That's… kind of obsessive." Naruto said, crossing his arms and squinting his eyes at Lee, "I mean you chased a girl you never even talked to all the way to Japan? What were you gonna do to get her?"

Clearly it didn't take much to perk Lee back up as he immediately bounced around before kicking at the air several times, "I have come to show her that I am well on my way to my true goal in life, of mastering all forms of Chinese Kenpo, just like her father and uncle."

"Hm." Ryou said with a smile, "What a high goal to try and achieve. There are only two complete masters of Chinese Kenpo in the world and he wants to match them."

Naruto grinned and stepped out of the way, revealing Renka to him who was smiling brightly at how simplistic this could turn out to be. If that was it they could nip this in the bud in a hurry, "You heard him Renka. Kick his ass." She wasn't shy about it either, immediately stepping into her stance of choice to begin the match.

That was what she liked about Naruto. He didn't think anything of letting her show her spark as a martial artist just because she was a girl. He knew firsthand how strong she was though, so that probably had a lot to do with letting her fight her own battle so casually.

"Absolutely not!" Lee crossed and uncrossed his arms animatedly, "I could never harm Miss Renka! I refuse to fight if it is to be against her. However." He then pointed directly at Naruto, "You. I challenge you. Take me on and I will verify myself as a martial artist and as a man to her by defeating her other suitor."

"Right…" Naruto said, tilting his head in confusion, "Anyone actually get what that meant?" He asked to his friends, noting that Renka was incredibly red-faced and keeping her eyes from meeting anyone else's, especially his.

Miu leaned in and whispered what Lee was implying, "He wants to fight you because he thinks that beating Renka-san's boyfriend is the best way to prove he's good enough for her." There was some understanding, but it was clear Naruto had missed the most integral thing, "…He thinks you're her boyfriend."

"Oh." Understanding washed over Naruto's face, but it didn't sink in for roughly six seconds, "Wait, what?" He looked over at the girl he was supposedly paired with and then back to Lee, "Are you kidding? What makes you think Renka would want me? And if you wanna fight, fight Koan or Genson!" With that, Naruto pointed at Ma Ryou's two present students. They were around Renka way more than he was.

Lee shook his head, "Oh-ho, no. As they are, neither of them could defeat me in a fight I am sorry to say."

Okay, that touched a nerve.

Working at the restaurant was just something that Koan and Genson did to pay their dues to Ryou for taking them on as students. They were martial artists first and foremost, and hearing someone so casually dismiss the skills they had worked to procure was something of an insult to them.

Looking over at Ryou, both received nods of permission to take Lee on, "We'll make you take that back." Koan said, stepping up to fight him first, "Let's see what you can really do."

Lee sighed, but took up his stance regardless, "Very well. If I must."

Miu squeezed Kenichi's hand, getting him to blush at the gesture until he realized that she wanted him to take note of the battle, 'That's right! The whole reason we came here was so I could get a view of Chinese Kenpo in action between people closer to my level.'

Koan moved forward and attacked with both of his hands and one of his feet at the same time; his Protean Kick. Lee knocked away both hands with one arm, extending his lead arm in a motion that deflected both with his forearm while lifting his attacked leg off of the ground, bending it slightly to repel Koan's kick stiffly.

'Jut Sau (Sinking Block).' Ryou noted. Lee's block came from the center, using the outside of his forearm with his elbow low enough to ensure that Koan's punch would always wind up deflected, 'The way he keeps his center protected at all costs… that's a Wing Chun principle of fighting.'

As he placed his foot back on the ground, in the same motion, Lee spun around backwards and swept Koan's other leg before his first got good footing back on the ground. He seemed to get absolutely no resistance as he kicked clear through in a 360 motion without losing any momentum, "Qiángfeng Sǎo (Gale Sweep)!"

The force of the sweep not only knocked him down, but sent Koan spinning on his back into the restaurant where he knocked a table and chairs over.

"Koan!" Genson leapt into battle, getting his first punch blocked, but smirking when it did. Stepping forward he kicked at Lee's front leg by using his own back leg to step over his own front and simultaneously chop at Lee's opposite hip.

Lee stopped the power of the attack by pushing his arm right into Genson's chest and extending it right when he went to strike. From there, Lee rushed forward in the close range with a series of rolling punches to the face, sending his fists one after the other in rapid bursts that dropped his target to the ground, "Lin Wan Kuen (Chain Punching)!"

He bowed to his defeated opponents before turning back around in a completely different stance to face Naruto.

"They had a lot of natural talent." Lee said, "There are two kinds of martial artists in the world. Those with natural talent that do not have to work at it to succeed, and those that have to train every day of their lives simply to keep up."

Wow. Koan and Genson weren't scrubs. They were fully, properly trained, and Lee had made them look like beginners. Lee was at least Ragnarok good, and that was scary, because he came out of absolutely nowhere and now he wanted to do battle with Naruto.

Ugh. What a mess. He only came there to give Kenichi a taste of Chinese Kenpo. He didn't come there to actually get into any fights himself. But when the call went out, he wasn't going to step down and back off.

"Do it for Renka-san Naruto-kun." Miu whispered to him as Kenichi continued to watch raptly and glean what he could from the way Lee took to trying to fight.

Naruto's eye twitched at the implication that he had only just come to terms with, 'I like it when I get to play the big damn hero and everything, but why do I have to be the white knight here?' Lee wasn't going to leave until he fought someone though.

"You can take him Naruto." Renka said to Naruto supportively before whispering to him, "The style he used in the first fight was Wing Chun. That won't affect you that much because you don't rely on middle balance for a lot of your moves."

Alright, sure. But now Lee was standing in a completely different posture. Standing to the side, his legs were rather wide apart forward and backward, lowering his center of gravity and somewhat protecting his groin, while his arms were crossed in the direction of his front leg at the forearms.

'Tongbeiquan.' Ryou thought to himself at the sight of Lee's stance, 'If this boy is confident in his chance of learning all of the Chinese Kenpo styles in the world, just how many is he privy to now?'

Naruto slipped into his informal default stance, his side mostly to the opponent, legs apart, left arm extended in a fist, right arm close to his face in a half-ram seal for guarding and secondary attacking. He hadn't used the actual secondary stances of the Hoken Juroppo Ken that Jiraiya had corrected for him on the mountain as starting points since the battle with Neji, keeping it to training with Shikamaru and Tenten instead of using them leisurely.

"What an odd stance." Lee pointed out before shaking his head, "It does not matter. I will show Miss Renka and the world that even though I was not born with natural talent and an aptitude for Kung Fu, I will be the greatest Chinese martial artist that has ever lived through sheer hard work and perseverance."

Naruto was presented with Lee's first attack, aimed at his head without warning. Naruto leaned his head out of the way of the punch but was unable to counter or set him off-guard by knocking the offending arm away, 'Where did that punch even come from?' Instead of taking the advantage, Naruto had to block a second punch from the other side that he didn't see coming, 'What kind of style is he using?'

He jumped back far away in time to catch Lee in the middle of an attacking motion, and Naruto understood why he hadn't ascertained the origin of the first attacks. Lee was throwing attacks generating power from his back to reach his arms. From the way his sleeve snapped back from the motions, a lot of definition could be seen on Lee's arms. It was a wonder just how strong his blows would be from that kind of motion.

Lee's feet flowed forward to keep up his onslaught, only now Naruto was more prepared to engage actively. While he still hated blocking, Naruto's proper use of the high blocking style of taijutsu neutralized Lee's shifty hand attacks. Every punch Lee threw was stopped by Naruto extending his opposite corresponding arm and brushing his other fist down the length of it to repel the punch.

The base principle behind the Fudo Ken (Immovable Fist) facet of the 16 Hidden Fists of taijutsu specialized in this kind of fighting; defending and countering without necessarily having to move around to do so.

It was quite the sight to be seen in rapid motion by those in attendance watching. A blur of upper-body movement. Kenichi almost thought Naruto had learned Seikuuken until he could clearly see otherwise. Naruto was moving his legs in order to keep Lee's hands moving in the exact path he needed them to in order to block them with the Jodan Uke motion.

Naruto threw a kick that Lee blocked, only to launch a second jumping kick while he was holding the first, "Ni Ryuu (Double Dragons)!" Lee ducked and it went clean over his head, but when Naruto landed with his back to Lee, he did so in a forward roll to avoid the long, leaning punch from the blow, 'He stopped that one like I threw it in slow motion.'

Spinning through his leaning back punch, Naruto thought Lee was going to go low, but his back kick impacted right off of his chest, knocking the wind out of Naruto and sending him back where the fight reignited.

Now Renka was getting a bit concerned. This Lee was no joke though at times he might have looked like one, "Those moves." She said to the others as she watched Lee control the distance with his odd, long method of punching, breaking it up to attempt the fast chain punches he'd defeated Genson with, "His base is Wing Chun, but he keeps switching to other forms in the middle of the fight."

Kenichi could see it. It was so strange.

It was as if Lee were using a more punch-based version of his own Strongest Combo, which cut down on its versatility and allowed Naruto to defend it, but it wasn't easy. The motion Naruto used to block was supposed to lead into a hammer fist counter, but he could never feel safe enough to try it, thus he refrained from doing so.

When he threw kicks, Lee's feet seemed to slide and tear across the floor before lifting off of the ground quickly and fly to their target in Naruto. He was controlling the distance, something that Naruto was usually good at doing with his method of moving in and out while fighting.

One of Naruto's punches was eventually blocked and grabbed by Lee, but before anything could come of it, Naruto twisted his body around, drawing him danger-close and putting his own arm around his back, just so he could try an elbow to Lee's face; the Shuki Ken (Hand Wake Up Fist) method of attack.

"Where did Naruto-kun pick up all of these extra moves from?" Miu thought aloud. She had picked up on the Shuki Ken and Fudo Ken changes in his attack. He no longer seemed jittery when it came to close range combat, "It's clear he still doesn't like fighting like that, but he doesn't seem to be panicking from staying up close for too long."

Naruto pulled a black egg from his pocket but quickly shifted hands with it and put it back. He wasn't going to be able to use that one without putting himself at risk, 'Note to self. Next thing to learn from Shigure; how to pull weapons from the pack faster.'

In the middle of this, Kenichi's eyes picked up on something from a distance that Naruto wasn't able to see up close. It was so subtle, but seeing his master Ma Kensei use so many forms to torment him the night before prompted Kenichi to see something of a parallel. Lee had switched forms between attacks, "Naruto-san watch out!"

Lee threw a single punch and twisted it, slowing it down in the middle of its trajectory to fool Naruto's guard and punch him square in the face to break his defensive pattern. A small smile came to Lee's face as he shifted styles again and shot a kick directly up under Naruto's chin, lifting him off of the ground with its force, "Shàngshēng de Fēng (Rising Wind)!"

Feeling his body lift up, Naruto backflipped through while he still had control of himself to get more distance from Lee. Wiping away the stains of red from his lip and chin, Naruto grit his teeth.

Lee's concluding stance was one completely different. Somehow he'd shifted to a stance that was kick-dominant and Naruto hadn't even noticed until he'd gotten a good look at him from a few feet away, 'This guy...' Naruto thought.

"I was originally poor at the beginner style taught to Phoenix Alliance disciples. Many of them said it was a waste to have me there." Lee said, shaking his head, "So I worked twice as hard as everyone else, spent hours and hours by myself practicing as hard as I could. I took as many extra lessons as my body could handle, and this is why I am better than you. It is why I have won countless battles amongst my peers and why I will win today."

"Because you trained?" Naruto asked, doing his best to keep from spitting a glob of blood onto the floor. He was still inside of a restaurant after all, and he didn't want to do anything gross like that there, "Are you saying I don't?"

"I am saying that you do not train as hard as I do." Lee replied, "From sunup to sunset. Rain, snow, or shine. No matter how badly I am hurt or how much I ache from the previous day. I had to work twice as hard to be on par with any other disciple, so I put in three times the effort… and four times the effort! And I will keep on, until I am the head of the Phoenix Alliance! It does not matter if I am not a natural like you. I put more effort behind what I do than you."

Naruto bared his teeth in annoyance. Lee was comparing him to someone like Berserker, who didn't have to work at it in the slightest to be a powerful fighter. That irked him. There wasn't anything about his skills that didn't come without buckets of sweat and blood.

"I was kicked out of my clan, because I wasn't good enough for them." Naruto said to him, "I trained as hard as I could for four years. Morning, afternoon, late night. I didn't have anyone to teach me, I didn't have anyone to spar with, and I made myself face demons from hell trying to prove to nobody but myself that I wasn't a failure."

He had his body scarred, he sacrificed what normal life he could have had in the outside world, all so he could train and train to be good enough to succeed at his Ryouzanpaku mission. There was a reason Kenichi was his only friend until high school.

Miu couldn't fault him and could actually agree on the 'demons from hell' comparison for the masters of Ryouzanpaku since he had been on the other side of their wrath, but realized that he hadn't differentiated between them and her, "Hey, I wasn't that bad to fight, was I?"

Now if Naruto hadn't been motivated to fight just because of the challenge and it being for Renka, he was going to fight now because he really wanted to show Lee how wrong he was.

Running back in, Naruto utilized his forward feint, causing Lee to commit to a low kick meant to stop him from taking one of his two front corners of vulnerability. When he threw it however, Naruto had actually jumped past him off of the podium nearby meant for greeters, using it as a kicker to come from behind with more speed where he kicked Lee in the back.

"Arashi Hakobi-te (Storm Bringer)!"

From how Naruto's kick landed, his foot stayed on Lee's back as they hit the ground, dragging Lee's front on the floor until the stopped and Naruto dropped his knee into the small of Lee's back to pin him down in a defenseless position. Lee wriggled, but all Naruto had to do was set a little more weight down on the point of his knee to paralyze him with pain and hold him down.

"Wow!" Kenichi had never seen Naruto execute that move like that before. In the past he'd just used it as a way to propel himself at an enemy faster with a harder kick.

Naruto held Lee down in the painful technical position, noted amongst the ninja to be the universal checkmate, "I'll be a Kage-level ninja if it kills me."

"Why…" Lee asked, struggling beneath Naruto, "…Are you so heavy?" Even in that vulnerable position, Lee knew he was strong enough to move someone Naruto's size off of him under normal circumstances

"Uh… leverage?" Yeah, he was going to go with that for the time being until the issue was pushed.

Lee winced in pain as every time he tried to move it just made things feel worse, 'He landed one clean blow, but he got me to the ground and stopped me with it. What sort of fighting style is that?' "I… concede defeat."

Naruto exhaled in relief, "Just remember, you can't make a girl date you by fighting. If you could, the guys I know would actually have girlfriends." He said the last part quietly, "But man, you can fight."

It was clear that Lee had only fought so many kinds of martial artists despite the sheer number of fights he had participated in. There wasn't really anything in Chinese Kenpo that would have prepared him for the indirect attack that came his way. If you didn't know in advance what you were dealing with to an extent, the mix-up patterns of Taijutsu could be a brain-bender.

The victorious blond found himself tackled off of Lee's back and to the ground by Renka, "Naruto you got him in one! What kind of move was that?" The excitable girl said, hugging the uncomfortable ninja from behind, "I couldn't even see your feet change your direction."

With Naruto no longer on his back, Lee sat up and looked down at the floor, "I… I was defeated." He then looked over at Renka who was still fussing over Naruto who had been triumphant, "All of my training."

Ryou walked over and put a hand on Lee's shoulder, "You fought the most unorthodox opponent that you could have possibly faced at your level. You had no idea what you were facing." He chuckled to himself at the thought, "Heh… In my years on this planet, I myself never faced a ninja."

Lee's wide eyes drifted back to Naruto, "That man is a ninja?" He had prepared himself for all sorts of fighting styles that he thought he would face in Japan.

Kenichi believed that Ryou had a serious point. Lee was taking it to Naruto that entire time that they had been fighting. If he knew even a little bit about what he had to be prepared for, things could have turned out way uglier. Lee was more dangerous than any other unarmed fighter that Kenichi could admit to facing in real combat, 'I'd hate to have to fight him.'

Miu looked over at Kenichi and noted the look of contemplation on his face, "This fight gave you a lot to think about. Do you get it now? Chinese Kenpo has so many forms that you can't estimate what Hermit is going to use until you actually fight him."

'Just like Naruto, I've just got to adapt. He didn't know what he was fighting either.' Even when Renka broke down that he was using Wing Chun as a base, Lee switched between at least ten different forms during the fight.

Ten different forms. He was maybe a year older than them at most, and he could easily transition forms in the middle of his attacks.

Ryou easily recognized that kind of skill, and the diligent work that had to go into it, "You're a very talented young man. You easily defeated Koan and Genson, and I believe if you had fought against Renka who had a style you would have recognized easier you might have had some success." The knowledgeable old man said with a smile, "If you would like, I would be more than willing to teach you here along with my other students."

Lee was being offered actual personal training from a renowned master such as Ma Ryou? Instead of having to bug other masters that he could find for some assistance he was being offered to be taught.

This was a sign from above. A sign that he WAS going to be the master that he dreamed he would be.

Yes! So what if he lost a fight? It was one fight! One minor setback! And from the looks of things he had been correct in his choice of opponent. He just needed to work five times harder now instead of four times harder! Yes, because four times just wasn't enough!

"Naruto." Lee said, standing back up off of the ground and getting his opponent's attention as he high-fived Kenichi, "I will remember that name. From this day forward… you are my eternal rival!"

"Huh?"

"Yes! I will redouble my efforts in training and I will challenge you again, and again, and again, until I prove that I can defeat you and am worth Miss Renka's attention!" Lee asserted spiritedly, "Every time I fall I will get back up! That is my promise to you Miss Renka. Nothing will keep me from earning your love!"

"You can't win a girl in a fight!" Naruto bellowed at Lee. The guy was good, but his head was as hard as a rock. He hoped he didn't give people those kinds of fits himself when they called him hardheaded, "This ain't the Feudal Era, 'ttebayo!"

Renka just palmed her forehead hard and shook her head before sighing and deciding to just go with it. Since he wouldn't fight her, there was only one other option.

"I guess it can't be helped." The bell-wearing girl said, "But I now I know for sure that Naruto will fight for me any time he has to."

From protecting her from the exploding bomb in the restaurant back during their first meeting, to taking on Rock Lee for her sake and coming up with the win in a shaky situation.

"I will?" Naruto asked, barely getting a look at Renka's somewhat smitten expression before feeling a shot to his shin, "Ow!" Turning to the only person it could have come from, he saw Miu smiling as if she hadn't just punted him in the leg to make him act right, "Why did you just-? Seriously, that hurt!"

Didn't anyone else see that, or was she really that fast? What the hell did he do to deserve that?

"Of course he will." Miu said, still smiling, "Naruto-kun doesn't shirk away from challenges, or from fighting for people he cares about."

"Tch." Naruto seemed almost offended that Miu felt the need to bring that up. As far as he was concerned, it should have gone without saying with his actions, "Of course I don't. If you need me you can just call me. That's what I'm here for."

Paging Naruto's ego. Damn it if it wasn't an effective way to sway him to the side of whatever sounded coolest to say or line him up the most with the principles he lived by most often. Sometimes it was as simple as that.

And he was _not_ going to ruin the way this was all going to play out. For crying out loud, it was the closest thing to being considered storybook romantic that Miu had ever seen in person. Just because Naruto had taken one too many blows to or falls onto his head, it was not going to stop the magic from happening.

Kenichi moved over to Miu's side while she was still smiling brightly, "…Why are you meddling?" The manipulation of the situation was quite obvious to him, "That was almost unfair."

"I don't know what you're talking about Kenichi-kun." Miu covered her mouth with her hand demurely, "It's just that I would never rob a woman of her knight in shining armor moment."

"So you're going to force it?"

"I like to think of it as guiding it along."

XxX

(Later That Evening – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

"It looks like you had fun in Chinatown." Hayato pointed out with an exuberant laugh as he saw the treated bruises on the lower part of Naruto's face, "I hope you learned something from the trip after what you said you'd seen."

"I did." Kenichi said with a smile, going through his evening training exercises in front of the Elder and Akisame. In a moment he'd have to go through his Muay Thai training with Apachai, but the quiet before the storm was nice for the time being, "Chinese Kenpo is a bunch of different styles. It's not something that you can prepare in advance for if you don't know exactly what your opponent can do. All I can do is fight and adapt as it goes on."

"That's the same for just about any other fight." Akisame told him, "Don't believe that you can plan for everything. While you should always prepare as best you can, some things you just have to take as they come."

That was a good lesson to take from the day's events. He couldn't freak out about every little thing that came his way, no matter how easy it was to forget that many times he'd be expected as a martial artist to face scary things.

"Apa! Finally Kenichi is training with Apachai again! Apachai will show you a new dangerous technique today!"

Well… there were still _some_ things he could be forgiven on freaking out about.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Naruto's House)

Naruto sat on the floor in front of the big couch in his living room as he, Shikamaru, and Tenten just relaxed for a few hours. His face had the marks from his fight with Lee, a few band-aids on his cheek and chin, but it wasn't anything worth getting a big row of questions from the other two. What a day though.

In hindsight, it was nice fighting someone that didn't want to kill him again, so it was sort of fun. Renka treating his wounds again wasn't so fun, because he hated looking weak and like he needed to be patched up. It was just a few scrapes and bruises. He could have gone back home without anyone fretting over them, but for some reason he thought he'd have to deal with a devilishly cold shoulder from Miu the entire train ride back to town and beyond if he'd insisted that Renka not bother.

Weird.

Anyway, ever since he'd gotten back a few hours ago, Shikamaru and Tenten had been kind of weird. Shikamaru was actually being actively attentive, and Tenten had been spinning a kunai around her index finger since he'd walked in the door that night. They'd been watching TV for a few hours now and he hadn't gotten a peep out of them.

"Guys?" Naruto finally said during a lull of a commercial break, "You're acting like somebody's holding a gun to your heads."

At that moment Naruto heard a long yawn from the stairs and hopped out of his seat to bear witness to Jiraiya coming downstairs in a plush robe. He was definitely enjoying the digs of the upper middle class home.

"Man brat, you haven't moved into Minato and Kushina's room yet?" The powerful white-haired man asked rhetorically before looking down at his current attire, "But yeah, I guess it would be kind of weird trying to sleep in a room where you knew your parents banged."

Naruto turned to his two ninja partners and pointed at Jiraiya, "…How long has he been here?"

"All. Day. Long." Tenten said with a twitching eye, "Every time I stand up to get something or do something he grabs my butt, even if he's nowhere near me when I first get up. And I'm putting way too many holes in your wall trying to kill him so I just gave up."

"If he didn't kill us after the first time he showed up I figured he wasn't going to now, so I didn't do anything." Shikamaru reported with a shrug, "It'd be too much of a drag to get killed by a homeless guy."

"He isn't homeless, he's just a hermit ninja." Naruto told them, "He's the guy that trained my dad and trained me in the mountains. He could have said he was coming though, or told us what he wants."

"I don't have a phone dumbass." Jiraiya said, walking the rest of the way downstairs and into the living room, "You all are going to have targets on your backs. If you really think that one team of genin is all that you're going to have to face, you're all as stupid as the kid here."

"Oi!"

The uninvited guest ignored Naruto and continued, "Your friends got the ones that you all didn't kill deported. Congratulations. But it won't be long now before they somehow get a report to the Homeland that they failed and can't leave their countries any longer to try again. When they do, they're not just going to let Naruto sit, and you other two won't be able to keep yourselves under wraps forever."

"So what?" Shikamaru said, lazing around in his recliner of choice, "We run? Because that was my first idea, but I was too stupid to do it."

"Running's for people that have somewhere to go." Jiraiya replied.

It was true. It wasn't like they had a whole network set up of places to go to outside of Japan. They didn't even have anywhere they could go to outside of town. They didn't have any resources.

With that point callously driven home, Jiraiya followed up, "You brats are trapped like rats on this rock of a country and everybody that would care knows it. There's no rush to take you down."

Naruto, Shikamaru, and Tenten all looked at each other grimly given the circumstances presented before them.

"The second they decide to send a chunin, you're all fucked." Jiraiya continued, punching into his palm, "Luckily… I've decided to come here and whip you suck-ass failure jockeys into shape."

Shikamaru and Tenten looked confused until Naruto dropped to his knees with a look of horror pasted on his face. Was he actually wary of training? He wasn't ever afraid to train. He worked with the weapons woman at Ryouzanpaku that readily used a sword on him on a daily basis.

"And I didn't bring the defibrillator." The big, white-haired man added as an afterthought, "So make sure you don't die the way this runt did on the mountain."

Eyes turned to Naruto who just sat down in another chair and rocked back and forth. He was going to be dreading just what the man had up his sleeve next. Rest assured it was probably going to hurt. A lot.

* * *

**Remember kids, the moral of the story is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I'm going to be the strongest mother f'er on the planet.**

**Yet still fixin' to take it over, because it's mine goddamn it.**

**So if you haven't figured it out, this story is different from what you're probably used to seeing from me if you've read other things I've written. I like it, and I like the way I'm doing it, so I hope you guys are too.  
**

**Kenchi out.**


	20. The Disciple

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Take that me! Who do I think I am!? I can't own things! Owning things is for winners with intrepid spirits and a drive to succeed!

Anyway... triple shot posting. You should probably make sure you realized that there was a chapter 18 before you blow through this one.

Not doing that again for a while, at least not with this one. Especially after two back-to-back.

**Chapter 20: The Disciple**

* * *

Thor's late night fighting ring had plenty of comers as usual. Even out on the street you could hear the sounds of cheering in the alley that it sat within. Hermit was loathe to go inside, but he was tasked with showing his 'friend' around.

"So Hermit, you're saying the guy that runs this place every night is tough right?"

Next to Hermit stood a tall, handsome teenage boy with long light blue hair in a ponytail down to his waist. His right eye was blue while his left was red, and on his face he had a blue bird marking under his left eye. He wore blue pants and a mostly unzipped blue jacket with a yellow stripe down the right arm and a red dragon motif on the left. Around his neck was a golden chain with a bird medallion on it.

The sole disciple meant to inherit all of the styles of the strongest Satsujinken masters in the world; Kanou Shou.

Hermit rolled his eyes underneath his hood. Why was he hanging out with this person again?

Oh yeah, because he was the crown jewel and the de facto leader of YOMI. As the newest member of Yami's top brass; the One Shadow Nine Fists, Ogata had to meet the chosen disciple meant to inherit the styles of all of the top members.

He was disgustingly strong.

Kanou had actually trained in Chinese Kenpo for a short while per the orders of the One Shadow Nine Fists. Granted, it was under a different master than Hermit had, but apparently they knew a few of the same moves.

"Why are you even following me?" Hermit said, sounding quite perturbed at his tagalong, "This isn't any of your business."

"Ah, but you're in YOMI now, and I'm the leader of YOMI." Shou said with a wide grin, "I can't have you slumming around in back alley street fights… at least not by yourself."

This could hardly be considered slumming. Sure, there would be a lot of riff-raff, but the entire point of this was to send a message to anyone strong enough to realize what was going on. He'd already snuffed out tons of other 'fighter' organizations.

"Fine. But this is my fight." Hermit was willing to endure not being allowed to go it himself, just as long as Shou left well enough alone and let him fight the one that counted tonight.

Even though the two weapon wielding guards out front tried to stop him, Hermit just dusted right through them and entered the heart of the alleyway club. Moving through the throng of people cheering on the fight going on in the metal ring set in the middle of the ground.

As he moved through the crowd they went silent and moved out of his way until he reached the front and stood at the edge of the pit, dropping in during an ongoing fight between two other martial artists.

"Leave." He said curtly, demanding their exit without any fuss, "…Now."

"Hermit!" Up at the top of the ring, Thor stood in his usual sleeveless kimono attire, glaring down at his former fellow Ragnarok member, "What business do you have coming here and interrupting my fights?"

His attention quickly shifted to Shou who was standing at the edge of the ring, just observing and smiling as if he didn't have a care in the world. He just waved at him and pointed back down, as if to say that Thor's business was to be with Hermit, 'That man. His strength… it can't be, but it's beyond Odin's.'

That kind of presence, it demanded his attention, and the man wasn't even doing anything. He was just standing there.

A sneer came to Hermit's face upon being faced with his target for the evening, "My business is taking you out. Out of everyone in that stupid Shade Alliance, you're the easiest to find by far, so I'm starting with you." He gestured for the sumo to join him in the ring, "Come on."

Thor's eyes narrowed on the black-clad fighter's form beneath him. He already knew about what Berserker had done to Freya. Ragnarok was definitely no more, even if he hadn't gone over to the more appealing side of the Shade Alliance.

Fine. If he wanted to fight, he would oblige him.

With a loud metallic thud, Thor dropped his sizeable mass down into the ring, pulling his kimono down to his waist and stomping his feet on the ground in preparation of the fight, "You were brave to come here, but it was foolish. How do you think you're going to beat a sumo in his own ring?"

"To a pulp." Hermit said, standing in his wide-armed stance, rotating his arms out in preparation for the fight.

Thor charged directly at Hermit, forcing him to backpedal across the metal floor of the ring. This was to his advantage. There would only be so many places that Hermit could flee to in the confined place that their fight was taking place in.

"Ever since losing to Uzumaki, I've been training to deal with speedy bastards like you!" Thor said, pursuing Hermit with all-out attacks from his palms with open-handed thrusts and slaps, "This ring, it's your worst nightmare. Nowhere to run to!"

Hermit wasn't going to pretend for a moment that standing in front of Thor was a feasible idea, but the thought that he would ever run from him would have been laughable if it didn't irritate him so much.

He moved himself out of the way of one of the steel walls to keep from being cornered, all the while causing Thor to get more agitated with his evasive approach to the fight.

"Your techniques definitely cleaned up." Hermit said as he kept out of Thor's way and got far enough away to prompt another charge from the big man, "You made it so that your moves can hit faster fighters without losing any power. But here's the thing-."

"Oniharite (Demonic Open Fist Slap)!" Thor put his full body weight and strength behind slamming a single open palm thrust home on Hermit, only to miss completely. He didn't even see which way Hermit moved to dodge in. He was just out of sight.

From behind, Hermit wasted no time, hitting Thor in an extremely vulnerable spot with a folded-hand strike; the back of the neck.

Thor's body buckled forward and he stumbled until the front of his body rested against the metal wall of his ring, "Hah…" His entire body was unresponsive and wracked with pain down his body from his neck.

"-You still leave too many openings in your attacks for someone your size." Hermit finished his previous thought. Thor was still standing though, "I was watching at the mall. If Uzumaki was aiming to kill you all he would have had to do was take your back and finish you with the speed advantage he had over you. You're lucky he's soft."

He grabbed Thor's shoulder and pulled him backwards, sending the giant of a teen falling to the ground with a metallic thud. With that, he climbed out of the metal pitas the rest of the fighters that had been amassed to take their turn ran away and scattered.

"Was that Stooping Bird Hind Brain Lightning Strike?" Shou asked, ignoring the panic of the rapidly clearing alleyway club as he wanted to talk about Hermit's fight, "That brings back memories." He looked down and saw Thor's face cringing in pain, "Hey, he survived."

"Tch." Hermit didn't bother looking back into the pit at Thor who wasn't going to be getting back up, no matter how tough he is, "He's stubbornly tough. I had to use a kill move on him just to ensure he'd stay down in one." He didn't know what it would actually take to kill the durable sumo, "Message sent though."

"You really don't like your old team do you?" The bird-loving YOMI leader asked with a goofy smile, "And what message?"

"That from now on, things are being played for keeps."

Shou's grin grew wider at the serious way he sounded, "Trying to sound cool are we Hermit?"

XxX

(The Next Day – Koryou High School)

Naruto rolled into school that day looking like he'd been run ragged before the sun had even come up that morning. His face was a new different kind of beaten up, and he simply sat through the entire day as if he didn't appear to have gotten into a fistfight while tied to a chair.

Jiraiya was officially in control of the morning training in 'Ninja House' now.

That was the new unofficial name for Naruto's home, coined by Shikamaru since it had recently become a place for ninjas to congregate.

Poor Shikamaru and Tenten. At least Naruto, he knew what to expect. They had no idea. The second the sun peeked over the mountains, they were promptly dragged out of bed and thrown into the dojo in the hidden basement to be put through their paces.

And Jiraiya, the man with the plan that he was, he had a little something for each one of them. The bastard could teach, as sadistic as he was about it. He'd torment them and then send them off to school to heal so he could do it all over again once they got home. Only it would be worse for Shikamaru and Tenten, because Naruto wouldn't be there to take some of the attention. He'd be at Ryouzanpaku getting similar treatment from Shigure.

For him, Jiraiya had aggressively revamped Naruto's physical regimen. His endurance and stamina was high enough by Jiraiya's view, thus Naruto's body work now consisted of upping his strength beyond what it already was after Jiraiya's brutal training in the mountains. It was time to put some more power with the speed he had worked so hard to earn and turn that into some extra force.

His body was left rather weak and throbbing by time he'd showered, changed, and began his trek to school, separating from Shikamaru and Tenten as they all went to their own separate high schools, no better off than him.

Of course Naruto woke up quite promptly at lunch when he was told what had happened the night before.

"Thor was put in the hospital?" Kenichi asked, beating Naruto to the punch after they were told of the happening by Niijima, "But who could do that to him?"

"It was Hermit." Niijima reported, "He's been in the hospital since early this morning. He challenged him at his fighting ring and defeated him there. Doctors say that if Thor's body didn't have so much muscle built up, the strike that Hermit used on him would have broken his neck and killed him. I've already told everyone else."

Kenichi had an angry look on his face as he stood up and walked out of the classroom where he had been eating lunch with his friends. He didn't say a word, but his temper was almost tangible. His ki was capable of being felt.

"Kenichi-." Miu went to reach out for him to keep him there, but was stopped by Naruto holding her in place as he left. Once he was gone, she turned back to Naruto who was shaking his head, "Why? He's going to go challenge Hermit."

"I know that. But when does Kenichi ever go and challenge anyone to a fight?" Naruto said, recognizing that for the first time, his best friend looked legitimately pissed off, "Even when he got beaten up, he was never mad about it. And he's gotta fight him eventually. So why not when he's motivated?"

"Because he can't use the Seikuuken unless his mind is completely settled!"

Naruto… did not know that bit of information. But even so, "If you don't let him do it you'll just make him madder." He shook his head, "Our bud can handle it." Sometimes a man had to go and get himself into a fight. It was almost an unwritten law.

At that point, Takeda entered the classroom, obviously having heard the news about Thor as well, "Naruto-kun, Honey. Where's Kenichi-kun?"

"Going to challenge Hermit." Miu said, a concerned look on her pretty face that hurt Takeda to look at, "Naruto-kun says to let it be. Takeda-senpai?"

What did she want him to say? His first instinct was to say that sometimes a man felt like he had to fight. But he couldn't say something so callous to that face, "Well Honey, didn't you take him to your dojo place so that he could learn how to fight for what he believes in? Why would you make him stop when he found a reason to without someone jumping him for once?"

It actually took a second for her to come up with a plausible response to that. Miu opened her mouth to answer the question when Kenichi walked back into the room and plopped back down in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't have a mark on him, nor his clothes or his fists. So what the hell happened? Naruto, Miu, Niijima, and Takeda all wanted to know.

Seeing all of the eyes on him, Kenichi spoke up, "I challenged him, and we're going to fight." Just like that. There was nothing to it but what he said, "After school. In the theater. Me and him, one-on-one, alone. No witnesses."

Naruto and Takeda both looked at each other wide-eyed before a light bulb seemed to go off in their heads simultaneously. Naruto got up and they both walked out of the classroom, "Uh, I just remembered." Naruto said, backing out of the room, "Me and Takeda have got to go… do something."

"School-related something." Takeda added, getting an emphatic gesture of agreement and confirmation from Naruto for credibility purposes, "So don't mind us. You just keep on doing your school stuff and preparing for that fight."

The second they got out in the hallway, Takeda's rapid footsteps running off somewhere could be heard. Naruto's could not as they left the vicinity and he pulled out his phone to make a call, "Yeah, hello?" No answer despite the fact that he knew someone had picked the phone up, "Shigure is this you? Hit a button if it's you."

BEEP

Back in the classroom, as confusing as those two had just been from their actions, there were more important things afoot.

"Are you sure this is really what you want to do Kenichi-kun?" Miu asked him. Naruto and Takeda had a point. Kenichi was a martial artist. It was insulting to question whether or not he was capable of acting as one, "A fight on your own terms for once is something of a luxury, but this might be hasty of you."

"I want to do it Miu-san." Kenichi said resolutely, "This isn't just for Thor or Freya being hurt by Hermit and Berserker when they joined YOMI, this is for me too."

Niijima grabbed Kenichi's collar, "You're serious? You're really going to take Hermit on? And it only took you two minutes to work out the conditions?"

"Actually…" Kenichi said somewhat sheepishly after his haze of anger had worn off, "…There weren't really any conditions. He's going to try to kill me, and I'm going to be trying to not let that happen." It hadn't sounded as stupid as it did in hindsight when he'd set the challenge.

Then again, if there were actual conditions it wouldn't be the real kind of fighting that he'd gotten used to.

_(Flashback – Five Minutes Ago)_

_It didn't take long for Kenichi to find Tanimoto's classroom where he was surrounded as usual by first-year girls that were enamored with the prince of the school. It was hard to believe that a guy like Tanimoto could act so harmless so seamlessly._

_Upon seeing Kenichi standing in the doorway, Tanimoto's eyes changed for a split second before he smiled handsomely to the girls surrounding him, "Excuse me ladies. I have to have a talk with my friend here. One second."_

_For some reason, Kenichi was completely willing to go along with his little act instead of trying to expose him for the kind of person he really was. There was no way it would work anyway. It would wind up backfiring on him and damaging his reputation more than anything else._

_So he would play along until there was no need any longer._

_The two of them went out into the hallway and walked without saying a word until they reached the bathroom where Tanimoto dropped his façade, smirking hatefully at Kenichi, "So Shirahama, not running for the hills this time?"_

_Kenichi didn't rise to the blatant remark at his expense. He knew full well what he'd done, "I'll admit, I was sort of surprised when I found out that you were Hermit, but this isn't about that." His fists tightened at his side, "Berserker targeted Freya and Naruto, you targeted Thor. Just what's going on here? Why are you doing this?"_

_Tanimoto walked over to the wall and leaned against it, "It's a warning. A message to you from YOMI."_

"_YOMI?"_

"_You should really ask your masters." Tanimoto said, "When they started training you, they should have told you just what you were getting yourself into. Your masters are from Ryouzanpaku right?" Kenichi's face reacted in shock at the fact that Tanimoto knew that, "That place holds the title of containing the strongest masters in history. A title that other people want. And as their disciple, guess what that makes you?"_

_History's Strongest Disciple._

_Goddamn it._

"_Those people, they're putting all of their techniques into you as their sole heir, so whether you want it or not, it's what you're seen as." Tanimoto dragged his thumb across his neck for emphasis, "The masters of YOMI want that title, and to get it, they'll run clean through Ryouzanpaku… and they'll have us in YOMI run clean through you, to prove that Satsujinken contains the most powerful martial artists."_

_Not Naruto, not Miu, despite the fact that Kenichi felt they were stronger than him. It was him with the target on his back. Again. But that still didn't explain why they had to go out of their way to attack Freya and Thor!_

"_None of that matters!" Kenichi shouted, "If your fight's with me let it be with me! Why are you going after people like Freya and Thor?"_

"_If you've got a problem with it, do something about it. Make me pay if you can." The handsome blond said, "In the world of martial arts, the only way to impose your will is through force."_

_Kenichi shut his eyes tightly and took a deep breath to settle his temper before reopening his eyes with sheer determination behind them. If that was the way it was going to be, there was only one thing he himself could do about it._

(End Flashback)

XxX

(Later that Day – School Theater)

There was plenty of space.

The building was separate from the rest of the school so no one would be entering, to go along with the fact that it was past 4 pm and no one would be anywhere around there. The Drama Club had no plays going on, and Tanimoto was a member so he would definitely know the comings and goings of the place, probably why he picked it as their battleground.

Outside of the doors, Kenichi was dressed in his new fighting outfit, completely ready for combat as he limbered up, Miu nearby watching him warm up.

Usually when he had to fight it was spontaneous. He never had time to contemplate that he was about to get into a conflict with someone, because it just happened out of the blue. He just had to react and fight. Having to wait for hours for something like this was a new experience altogether. The hours left in school before it let out seemed to drag on endlessly.

When the bell rang it felt like someone had taken a leash off of him.

At first opposed to the fight, Miu changed her tune once there had been time for Kenichi to assess the fight without his actions being based on anger, "I'll be right out here until the end."

Kenichi stopped preparing himself and shook his head, smiling at Miu in turn, "No, I want you to come inside and watch." If this was going to end badly, he'd rather face it knowing that he didn't fall without anyone seeing, "It would mean a lot to me."

Miu smiled beautifully before nodding. If that was what he wanted, a witness, then of course she would, "You can do it. You've been training hard for this."

With that, he entered through the metal doors of the auditorium and looked around. He didn't have to search very far to find Tanimoto, clad in his obscuring Hermit garb, standing on the stage as if he were about to begin a great act.

Like a man on a mission, Kenichi walked down the main aisle and jumped up onto the elevated, wooden stage without hesitation.

There was no preemptive strike from Hermit. He waited until Kenichi felt he had walked to where he wanted to be before doing or saying anything, "I said no one could be here, but this is fine. Just as long as Fuurinji doesn't interfere and this is between you and me."

Kenichi just made sure that the wraps around his fists were tight and secure, "Miu-san won't do anything. I was the one that challenged you, not her."

Underneath his hood, Hermit smirked, "You know, I've wanted to fight you for a while Shirahama. Your friend Uzumaki is too dumb to be phony, but you? I thought that you were just a chump playing hero, fighting for your 'justice' and trying to be mister nice guy the whole time. This is really you though isn't it? So I want to see if you're still this way when you're all alone and broken."

It was true, Kenichi usually had others supporting him when he fought, but he didn't need it. This was a fight he had no problem getting himself involved in. For once, he was really motivated to fight someone, no strings attached.

"Who I am doesn't change when there are people around or not." Kenichi said, standing in his choice of a Chinese Kenpo posture, "I'm not trying to trick anybody into thinking I'm something I'm not. If YOMI thinks I am who you say I am, then I'll just have to live it. Shirahama Kenichi, the strongest disciple of the strongest masters in history."

TCHIK!

Both Hermit and Kenichi looked around in confusion at the sharp popping or clicking noise that had come seemingly from somewhere in the room. Even Miu seemed confused by its origin.

XxX

"Canned beer?" Naruto hissed quietly to Sakaki who was enjoying a cold one from their bird's eye view in the darkened catwalk of the auditorium above the stage, "Really? You couldn't open that _before_ they came in here?"

Honestly, did no one appreciate the importance of quiet when it came to stealth? The fight hadn't started yet, so it wasn't like they could risk causing something of a stir. That was what you got when you tried to sneak people into the rafters.

"Sakaki… isn't very subtle." Shigure said, also watching the to-be fight below between Ryouzanpaku's number one disciple and Hermit, "No one's supposed to be here watching this."

Rolling his eyes as he took a drink, Sakaki pointed his thumb to nearby where Takeda, Ukita, and Kisara were sitting down for safety and watching, "Which is why your brat thought it would be a novel idea to sneak his friends in here to watch the show."

"Hey, we've got just as much of a right to watch this as anyone else." Ukita argued in their favor, "Kisara even used to be a Fist, so she probably knows a lot about how Hermit is gonna bring it to Kenichi. Right?" He asked, trying to appeal to the Taekwondo specialist.

Kisara just shook her head, "I've got no idea how strong Hermit is anymore if he really put Thor in the hospital." When they had been in Ragnarok, Thor and Hermit had only been separated by one number, "Shirahama had better be on his A-game, that's all I can say."

Sakaki just grinned as he held up his beer to his lips again, "Don't you worry about a thing. I wouldn't bet against our disciple after all the work we put into the kid, eh Shigure?"

Instead of saying anything, the weapons prodigy just turned in his direction and placed her finger to her lips, signaling him to be silent before pointing back down at the fight, "It's star~ting."

Takeda just watched raptly, a smile at the fight preparing to ensue. He was so ready to see a high level battle between people his age after missing out on the last few worthwhile scrapes, "I wish I'd thought to bring snacks for this."

XxX

Hermit's stance was odd to Kenichi. For a starting posture it left him with his arms wide open and apart. His hands were open, but it was such an awkward stance to punch from. There was no way he was going to use his fists from the way he looked.

'A slow starter.' Hermit thought to himself, rushing forward to smash Kenichi quickly. His arms moved as if his hands were blades, using them to thrust and chop at Kenichi only to find his Seikuuken defense up and able to fend off his powerful strikes.

Overhand, straight, curved. All of these angles that Tanimoto attempted in his furious rush to hurt Kenichi quick and early, 'He really is using strong fist styles. I can feel the destructive intent behind every attack.' The sharp edges of his hands were his weapon of choice.

Getting irritated at Kenichi's powerful defense, Hermit eventually calmed himself with a smirk, "Kensei-sama knows this technique pretty well."

'Kensei?' The temporary lapse in his focus was a major detriment, as Hermit stepped his lead foot past Kenichi's lead foot, slamming the side of his knee into Kenichi's to compromise his balance and subsequently burying his elbow into the small of his back with a reverse strike, "Gah!"

"Ten Zan Kou!" Hermit's attack knocked Kenichi face-first onto the wooden stage, marking the breaking of his defense, "The Seikuuken is a strong defensive technique, but you can only defend the places your arms can reach. You can't protect your legs!"

Despite being downed and cringing at the blow intended for his spine, Kenichi got back up to one knee, his hands in a traditional Karate technique position, and turned around in enough time to protect himself from an overhand chop with a cross guard, 'Thanks Sakaki-shishou.' "That was to kill wasn't it?"

"My master says martial arts exist for killing people that you don't like." Hermit felt Kenichi's hands shift to gripping his wrist and forearm for a throw. Waiting for the moment that Kenichi turned and put force behind the throw to lift him up, Hermit twisted his body in the air and kept Kenichi from hurling him to the ground, "I definitely don't like you!"

Kenichi still had a grip on his arm, though it wasn't in as advantageous a position as before, 'Hermit's Kung Fu uses long extending strikes, so as long as I stay close I've got the advantage.' Stepping forward, Kenichi slid his grip farther up Hermit's arm, Holding onto just under his elbow with one hand and at the shoulder with his other, putting pressure on the joint.

He then felt a hard chop to the side of his stomach that felt like it would fold him over.

"I'm not some long-range specialist you dumbass!" Hermit yelled, turning through Kenichi's now weakened grapple to deliver a dual palm strike to both sides of Kenichi's body, causing him to spit blood, "Ma-sifu taught me Piguaquan and Bajiquan at the same time to cover for each other!"

'His master is named Ma as well?' Kenichi recovered well enough to block an overhead chop, but wound up taking a lowering elbow to the face when Hermit bent his arm. Stumbling back, he saw a palm strike come his way only for Hermit to avert his strike into a full swing that drew across his own body, 'A feint?'

Hermit uncrossed his arms, striking hard at Kenichi with both of them simultaneously, but they were blocked attacks. Hermit struck out with the palm of his left hand, only to move to his right to get to Kenichi's side/back to chop at his neck, "You're starting to catch on to my feints."

"Compared to someone else I know, yours aren't that fast. I can actually tell you're feinting even if I don't really know what you're going to try." Kenichi said after taking the heavy blows that he'd endured.

XxX

Naruto put up his hand for a high-five from Takeda without either of them even looking and got an awkward fist bump/high-five hybrid that thankfully for both of their reputations no one saw, "Err… so Tanimoto was taught by another Ma. How many are there? Because I know like three already, and none of them trained him."

They were all dangerous as hell, and Ma Ryou had students, but Hermit was not one of them.

"Kensei has a brother." Sakaki said, feeling real interest and concern in the battle for Kenichi. He'd even stopped drinking to watch, "A brother who's just as strong as he is in Chinese Kenpo. And he's got to be as good of a teacher too, because this kid is good. The way he talked about martial arts is definitely his m.o."

Shigure nodded in agreement and continued, "Ma Kensei's brother is Satsujinken. He… doesn't talk about him much, but everyone worth something in the martial arts world knows of the 'Fierce Fist God' Sougetsu."

"Why isn't he here again anyway?"

"Clinic work."

"Ah."

Kisara's eyes widened in realization. She hadn't even considered the fact that Hermit had a master. The sticking point for most of the members of Ragnarok had been that they were going to be taught by an actual master when the time was right.

A while back, before the ninja stuff started, Hermit had disappeared for upwards of a week and a half. He did that sort of thing all the time, so no one thought too much of it. Just a training excursion as he was wont to do. But if he had a master and could get to him… that was probably where his huge jumps in ability came from, enough to move past Siegfried and take Loki's No.4 place before Ragnarok's collapse, and who knew how far it had gotten to now?

"This isn't good." Kisara bit the tip of her thumb watching the ensuing battle below, "If Hermit has a master-class teacher, he's actually more dangerous than I thought."

Having someone that good that could actually iron out his weaknesses was something that most of the rest of Ragnarok never had despite their skills obtained through their own training.

"Well does he have any weaknesses?" Takeda asked, the dissecting nature of boxing nature coming forth for the question, "You know, something that Kenichi-kun can take advantage of in Hermit's style?"

"He's a disciple so he can't have too much experience working against aerial attacks." Kisara said, but that didn't do much good. Aside from her, Naruto, and maybe Freya with a few of her strongest techniques, no one else would know even half of what they needed to consider attacking from above and risk that kind of tactical gamble.

That was just great.

XxX

Miu was concerned. It wasn't like Kenichi had been taking glancing shots. When Hermit landed he was landing flush, and what he had been hitting Kenichi with had been none too gentle at that.

'This person isn't wearing Kenichi-kun down with dirty tricks and numbers the way that Loki did.' She thought to herself, 'He's just outworking him. Outpacing him.' Kenichi had to do something to break the flow of the battle, otherwise Hermit would just continue to garner more momentum, "Come on Kenichi! Just break Tanimoto-san's stride before it's too late!"

Kenichi stood back and reassessed the situation after hearing Miu's call, retaking his most common stance and resetting his Seikuuken, but Hermit wasn't willing to give him any time to analyze what had been happening to make adjustments.

"Backing off and taking a moment to yourself isn't going to stop anything!" Hermit sneered, coming forward to strike straight through Kenichi's chest, 'When he avoids the strike he'll have fallen for another-!'

Instead of using his arms to block Hermit's strike, Kenichi grinned and flexibly shot his front leg up into the air to kick Hermit's forearm hard enough to break his attack and injure him from the snap and impact of the kick, "Who can't feint!?"

'What kind of damn aim?' Hermit's body on the right side was wide open, and despite him trying to twist and switch to give his left side to Kenichi, the latter was already moving to take advantage of the opening, 'He never set himself to use Seikuuken! Damn him!'

From the way Odin used the technique, as the primary base to everything that he did, he felt Kenichi would use it the same. Not only was he wrong, he was painfully wrong.

Putting everything he had into his hips behind one stiff punch, Kenichi blasted Hermit in the side of the face and knocked him down to the edge of the stage, his head and arms hanging off of the side of it.

"Like I said Tanimoto…" Kenichi said, looking to be revitalized by scoring such a huge knockdown blow, "Compared to someone else I know, yours aren't that fast. They're not that good either. As good at acting as you are, there's one thing about your feints that are missing that Naruto-san's has when we spar."

Hermit slowly pushed himself up, dripping blood from a cut on his cheek. Kenichi's punch had nearly cut him to the bone, "Like I care about what that idiot does with his bluffs."

"He puts his soul into selling them!" Kenichi told Hermit anyway, "You use your arms and he uses his legs, but when Naruto-san commits to one of them he treats it like a game of Russian Roulette. Either he gets you to bite or he pays the price. There are no outs. Every time you switched what you were doing mid-move you always left yourself some sort of freedom of movement to escape in case I caught on."

"Of course I did! That's common sense! To make your moves hollow!" If anything, hearing that just affirmed more to Tanimoto that Naruto was an idiot. If he really used his motion feints in that kind of manner he must have had a death wish.

"And that's how I can tell! That's why I can preempt you!" Kenichi said spiritedly, "So you can use as many as you'd like now. I'm ready. No matter what you do, I can guarantee that at the very least, every time you hit me I'll hit you too."

"There's one problem with that. One reason why I'll take that chance every time." Tanimoto said, wiping away the blood streaming down his left cheek, "Even if that's true, unlike you when I strike I'm aiming to kill. And I won't fall until you do!"

Seikuuken was a dead-beaten horse at this point, and Tanimoto wouldn't fall for a second ploy using the idea of the technique to psyche him out, so it would be a clash of offense against offense as the two moved forward to meet one another head-on.

Tanimoto's first knife-handed strike was stopped by Kenichi knocking it down and bouncing his hand back up in a crane's neck position to counter instantly. Tanimoto spun his body around to avoid the attack at his face and immediately retaliate. His flowing black cloak disguised enough of his moves to conceal his powerful overhand flat palm strike until it was almost too late to see it, "Uryuu Banda (Black Dragon Smash)!"

The blow was aimed at the juncture of the neck and shoulder, but didn't kill Kenichi due to his instinctive reaction of lifting his shoulder to take the blow and let it slide nearly harmlessly to his neck. The strength of the attack blunted significantly, Kenichi turned and grabbed the offending arm, "Oogoshi!" Lifting Hermit over his shoulder, Kenichi slammed him brutally to the ground.

The Judo mark in Ukita almost flipped out in the rafters above upon seeing Kenichi use a throw so skillfully. Fortunately, Takeda covered his mouth and Kisara hit him in the stomach to take the wind out of the big man.

Kenichi sat his knee into Hermit's belly to initiate a follow-up submission, but Hermit's body wasn't battered enough to allow such a thing yet, using his other hand to sharply strike up at Kenichi's face and cut the tip of his nose due to how close it was.

Scrambling back to his feet, Hermit's ribs creaked in protest. Kenichi's stupid comment about how he'd match every blow he landed wasn't supposed to be something he upheld, "Tch. Whoever trained you didn't do too shabby."

"You either. If it wasn't for what I already know about Chinese Kenpo from Ma-sifu, you might have won already." Kenichi admitted, letting out a heavy breath, "You said you were taught by someone with that name didn't you?"

"I'm not your buddy." Hermit said, gritting his teeth angrily, "Don't try to compare masters with me like we're swapping war stories. Just fight!" Hermit struck out with a palm strike that narrowly missed Kenichi's head and used his other hand to block a knee that came up from below in retaliation, shoving the two away from each other.

Growling to himself at his inability to score another vital strike, Hermit spun around backside to lash out with a knife-hand blow only to feel a brutal stinging shot to the side of his lead knee the moment that he hit Kenichi's face. A Muay Thai low kick! And it was a crippler of one due to the way it folded his knee to the side. He didn't get everything he wanted due to Shirahama's timely counter.

Still though, that disruption of Hermit's base and concentration only kept the move from putting Kenichi out cold. It still hit, and it still hurt like hell, 'He didn't knock me out! Good!'

One more try was in order, but the moment he stepped in to continue, he found Hermit uncomfortably close to him and felt a crack right in the middle of his chest where Hermit had buried his elbow.

A yell of pain ripped from Kenichi's mouth as he knew he had felt something break. But instead of faltering, he grit his teeth and bit the pain back.

His opponent was more than close enough for what he wanted and his legs were already set for the technique.

"I told you…" Subtly, Kenichi put his hands into position to aim before putting forth every principle the move required to work in one move. Karate's movement of both the punching and non-punching hand in simultaneous motion for power, Jujitsu's method of putting your whole body into your moves for force, Chinese Kenpo's surpassing of the mind's limit as you send your hand out to strike, and Muay Thai's mindset of hitting as if you were trying to punch through your target, "Every time you hit me I'll hit you too! Mubyoshi (No Beat)!"

Hermit felt as if every organ in his body squished against his back in the span of a second, 'He didn't drop _and_ he hit me harder?'

His body flew off of the stage and crashed into the seats, spilling over more than twenty of them as his body hit the cold concrete floor underneath them. He hadn't been rendered unconscious, but his body simply wasn't responding to what he wanted it to do.

On stage, Kenichi dropped to his knees, clutching at the center of his chest tightly, 'Please don't get up. I don't think I have anything left to give.' And if defeating Hermit took something more heavy-duty than Mubyoshi, he didn't want to find out what it was that would keep him down.

"Damn!" Hermit shouted, his teeth red from his own internal blood, "Damn it! Get up!" His voice echoed out in the mostly empty auditorium, almost haunting for those present to hear, "You… can't lose! You promised her! I promised… I would never lose!"

Kenichi wanted to stand back up, but every time he did it felt like his ribcage was going to spread apart from the front. Eventually he stopped trying and dropped down to his side on the wooden floor beneath him, "I can't… get up either."

Hermit probably did break something when he struck home with his elbow. Using Mubyoshi and the full-body motion required to make it work more than likely exacerbated that injury extensively. At the time, present-Kenichi figured that this would be a problem that future-Kenichi would have to deal with.

Unfortunately, future-Kenichi only lived five seconds ahead in time to at-the-moment present-Kenichi.

"It's not over…" Hermit did his best to crawl and get back to his feet, but from the chairs underneath him and the weakness in his body all he was doing was backstroking in a sea of folding chairs, "Ugh."

"Kenichi-kun!" Miu was onstage in a flash, kneeling next to Ryouzanpaku's downed disciple, "Tell me where it hurts."

"Where I hit him right in the chest with my elbow would probably be a good place to check first Fuurinji!" Hermit yelled from the floor before laying down flat on his back, "Duhhr!"

"You be quiet!" Miu turned and shouted back at him, waving her fist. She turned her attention back to Kenichi only to let out a slight yelp of fright at Shigure being right across from her on Kenichi's other side, "Shigure-san? Where did you come from?" Shigure kept her eyes on Kenichi and just pointed up to the catwalk above where Miu could see Naruto, Takeda, Kisara, and Ukita, "Wh-What? You've been there the whole time?"

On the floor, Sakaki landed from his jump down and walked over to Hermit to pick him up, "I've got this kid. Let's roll everybody! Akisame's clinic for Kenichi, Kensei's for this brat."

"Hey!" Hermit disputed, still unable to put much effort into his fight underneath Sakaki's arm, "What the hell? Put me down! I hate doctors!"

The masters took the injured Kenichi and Hermit out of the gym to go and get medical treatment, leaving Naruto, Takeda, Ukita, and Kisara to get down from the rafters on their own.

Kisara was the first to climb down, touching down on the stage and looking at the drops of blood on the wood, "Now that was a fight. That couldn't have been the timid guy that was afraid and hiding from my Ragnarok underlings a few months ago."

As she looked down she frowned despite the almost favorable outcome of the fight. She… didn't think she could defeat either of them as she was. If she had taken Kenichi on in the past, if he had been willing to fight a woman, would she have been able to take him down back then?

Even if he hadn't been able to, Naruto did it anyway. And he'd just kept getting stronger. Beating Thor, having killer ninjas after his life, and protecting the powerful staff-using Freya of all people from the even stronger Berserker without even flinching or hesitating in the slightest.

It was even worse for Takeda and Ukita. Ukita wound up being felled in one attack from Kenichi and it was as if he was watching his back on the horizon now.

Takeda had gone from saving Kenichi from Loki, to watching him defeat an opponent that he currently couldn't touch judging from the way Hermit fought today.

Oblivious to the inner turmoil of his friends, Naruto climbed on down, grinning like a loon at Kenichi pulling out the victory.

"Whoo! That was awesome!" Naruto expressed exuberantly as the last one down off of the rigging, "The ending wasn't so great, but whatever! He won!" Strangely though, the others seemed to be deep in thought.

Straight over his head.

XxX

(That Evening – Elsewhere in Japan)

With a yawn, Kanou Shou sat alone at a shrine bored out of his mind. According to the will of his primary master and the others that had taught him, he was meant to coordinate the movements of YOMI by the will of the 'One Shadow' of Yami.

Eventually he saw a figure walk up over the edge of the stairs leading to the shrine, "Well if it isn't Odin." Shou said with a grin, "What's up newbie? First one here front and center it seems."

"I may be new, but don't think I'm weak." Ryuuto said with a calm smile behind his bespectacled appearance, "You've already met Kensei-sama, so you should know already. He doesn't particularly like weakness." His gaze then turned dangerous, "And there's nothing I hate more than the idea of losing, to anyone."

Shou grinned at the feeling he got from the former leader of Ragnarok, "You want to calm down a bit. There's no need to be so bloodthirsty." His sense of projection turned extremely murderous at the threatening aura coming from Ryuuto, "I am the leader, the mission here is the same for all of us. To kill Ryouzanpaku's top disciple. It doesn't really matter which one of us does it."

"It does to me." Ryuuto said before stopping to change his pitch. This person was the leader of YOMI, as much as he resented being led by anyone else in such a way, "Of course, while Ken-chan has most of the direct teaching from the Ryouzanpaku masters and is the top disciple, that doesn't mean he's the strongest. The other one there doesn't claim discipleship though. Something about ninjas not having masters."

A look of interest crossed Shou's face before he put his hand over his forehead and started laughing, "A ninja? Like running around in black pajamas, puffs of smoke kind of ninja? Ah, man that's great. You're a funny guy. This kid you're talking about must be insane."

Ryuuto just shrugged, "Believe me, I know how it sounds but I'm not kidding. Uzumaki Naruto. Ask Kensei-sama when you see him again if you don't believe me."

"No, I'll take your word for it." Shou said, "It doesn't matter though. One's a wingless bug and the other's a shadow of a bug. YOMI'll crush whichever one of 'em wants to step up."

"Take care." Ryuuto said as he noted other figures making their way over the crest of the stairs. His fellow members of YOMI's elite disciples he presumed, "Even if they're not very strong, bugs can be something of a problem if you let them be."

Shou got up from the statue pedestal he had been sitting on and flipped over Ryuuto's head, landing smoothly on the other side of him where the incoming YOMI members were walking towards his back, "I'll tell you this to remember. Those with wings always fly above those without them."

The insinuation of the gesture was not lost on 'Odin'.

"I see." Ryuuto adjusted the glasses on his face in an unreadable gesture as Shou turned around to greet the arriving YOMI members, "I'll make sure I remember that."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Shade Alliance Hideout)

"That was quite the battle between Kenichi-kun and Hermit." Takeda remarked with a smile in the resting room of the hideout, "The way I am right now, even with all my training I can't even dream of keeping up."

"Right?" Next to him, Ukita walked into the room as well, both still marveling over how amazing it was to them, "It seems like years ago when Shirahama knocked me out, but it was just a few months. Do you know what I mean Shikamaru?"

"Ugh." Laying flat on a table in the room, staring up at the ceiling, Shikamaru groaned, "The only reason I come here is because it's a nice place to get a view of the clouds on the roof. But I hate days like today. You know, days with those wispy little ones that you can barely see instead of the big puffy ones. So I'm stuck in here where everyone can ask me crap."

"You didn't answer the question at all." Takeda remarked dryly. Shikamaru was quite the character amongst them. He never seemed to be interested in anything, and the way his body looked, he didn't seem to be much of a fighter. But he had handily defeated Loki, which accounted for something, "Don't you feel like other people are pulling away?"

They were talking to the wrong guy. Shikamaru had never really been the most prideful when it came to his ninja skills. He fought when he had to, and he didn't relish in victory and proving his talent. It was just that losing usually meant that bad things were going to happen, so it was better for him to win.

Unfortunately, Jiraiya wasn't having any of that, and upon realizing just how far apart the practical combat gap was between Naruto and Shikamaru, he took rash steps to remedy that. This was why he had decided to go to the hideout after school. Shirking the torture that Jiraiya called training.

"You mean like Naruto or Kenichi?" Shikamaru asked. Takeda's silence said all he needed to know, "Look, I've been dealing with this for years. A long time ago, me and Naruto saw the Fuurinji girl, and nothing we could at the time could touch her. That troublesome woman's like a feather that can cut the wind or something. Sound familiar?"

It did. Takeda felt it the other day watching Kenichi and Hermit battle. Hearing Kenichi defeat someone like Shiratori was one thing. Hearing that he'd beaten Siegfried was the start of that feeling. But Hermit had been at the top of his game, better than he had ever been as a member of Ragnarok, and Kenichi fought him to a standstill.

And actually seeing _that_ firsthand was something that he just couldn't shake off this time.

"So what then?" Ukita asked, with other members of the Shade Alliance gathering to listen to the conversation between their officers, "We train as hard as we can, and I feel like I can't keep up. Having a master to teach you really does make all the difference."

"You've got two choices." Shikamaru said, lifting a hand with two fingers into the air, "You can accept it and sit back like I did, or you can do what Naruto did. Get pissed off that someone is stronger than you and do something about it. When Miu kicked Naruto's ass again and again I'd quit by then. He kept training, and while I still wouldn't pick him in a heads-up against her, I trust that idiot to take on just about anyone else." Especially now.

"How do you get that strong without a teacher?" That was the thing. Everyone that was outrageously good had someone to train them, "I've looked all over, and nowhere I've looked has boxing that's practical. I don't think there are masters for boxing."

Shikamaru just thumped his head off of the ground at getting goaded into a conversation before one of the thumps jogged an idea, "…You want to find a practical boxing master? Like the kind of boxing that would work against anything, right?" Takeda nodded, "I've got an idea, but you're not going to like it, because I never even liked it."

The way Shikamaru's face twisted, it had to be something special. Takeda looked over at the wary Ukita, but decided that if others were going to be risking their lives, and if there were more of these YOMI people, he wasn't going to be left behind.

XxX

(That Night – With Naruto – Ninja House)

Jiraiya sat cross-legged, meditating in the hidden basement dojo while Naruto and Tenten were busy undergoing his training, "Hold your breath. I don't want to hear your breathe." Jiraiya warned, cracking an eye to give a threatening look to the pair as they walked past the open door, "…Hold it until I say. We'll do this until I get what I want."

Outside of the main dojo room, on the pressure-plate floor that would sound off noisily if one walked on it wrong, both Naruto and Tenten had their breath held, simultaneously balancing boards with a weight on their heads.

'This sucks!' Tenten thought to herself, taking great care to balance the weight and keep her steps silent, 'What does any of this have to do with marksmanship? That's my ninja art! Not… this.'

She wondered how Naruto was dealing with it. Her weight was significantly lighter than his; three times lighter, and with his silent steps Naruto was also holding his manriki-gusari and swinging it for added difficulty in remaining quiet.

What was the point of this exercise? She wanted to ask this because unlike Naruto, she hadn't seen Jiraiya hold his breath underwater for three hours. Even holding it for the amount of time she had done it for was making her lightheaded, which threatened to make her steps sloppy.

Regular healthy humans couldn't really hold their breath longer than one minute. They were just about to knock on the door of five minutes.

"Stop." Jiraiya called out, much to Tenten's relief, "Come in here you two, I want to talk to you."

Yes please. Tenten took the weight she had been balancing off of her head and walked in along with Naruto to sit down on the floor in front of Jiraiya to get their breath back. The man was an enigma. He was a Konoha ninja that was completely willing to help them instead of kill them or capture them to turn them in.

None of them had any delusions that he could not easily accomplish this if he was so motivated to.

He seemed insane. A completely immature pervert with flashes of sadism in how he trained them and no shame due to how he was entirely willing to mooch off of Naruto's resources… which admittedly he was mooching off of from his deceased parents.

But then he did things like this; showed a more introspective side instead of the scary, lunatic of a taskmaster that tormented them from sunup to school time and at night.

"Shikamaru skipped." Naruto grunted, turning his neck to the side with an audible crack, "…Ow."

"Oh don't you worry about that." Jiraiya assured him, "Whenever he rolls back in, if he doesn't have a good excuse he'll be making up this exercise and then some, even if it has to go on top of later exercises. But I can tell that some of us don't understand why I'm breaking you like this."

Eyes drifted to an uncomfortable-looking Tenten who had been put on the spot, "Well I don't want to seem unappreciative, but it's just weird. Even compared to the stuff we did on the island."

"That's alright." Naruto said, "I bitched too back when he started training me. It took me longer though. Right around the 3rd time he had to shock me back to life." It was strange how he was calm about that happening already.

Jiraiya nodded before launching into his explanation, "By now you know the drill. The stuff at the Homeland was basic. Any dojo that teaches modern day excuses for 'Ninjutsu' can basically teach the stuff you learned. They'll spend decades learning what you brats learn in ten years at the longest and call themselves masters, but you can learn what you were taught somewhere else. The real stuff you get after you graduate."

"Or would have." Tenten said, "For those of us with parents."

"Oi, I don't have those either you know." Naruto deadpanned.

"You had them."

"Technically so did you, just for a lot shorter."

"Hey. Shut up. I'm waxing philosophical here." Jiraiya interrupted, butting down the side conversation before it could get started, "Now, do you know why there's so much folklore and legends about the things that ninjas can do. Do you know where that crap comes from?"

"Scared people?"

"Sort of. Because a lot of it comes from somewhere." Jiraiya grinned, "Since we're not supposed to be afraid of death we're completely willing to stretch the limits of what our bodies are capable of to come up with any kind of new advantage. Like the cute little heart-stopping thing I made you learn brat." He said to Naruto."

Naruto clutched at his chest almost out of instinct after the training he went through to learn that jutsu. Tenten was intrigued, but that was a curiosity that he wasn't going to be the one to sate, "...I'm not gonna use it just to show you. I hate that move."

"Somebody played around with that idea first." Jiraiya continued, ignoring Naruto's discomfort in exchange for making his point, "Somebody got the brilliant idea to give himself cardiac arrest to fool somebody for an advantage. The quiet step you use, those noisy floors that you practice it on were created first and the walking method we use was made to counter them. Come up with any obstacle, and we either came up with something for it or I can guarantee that someone's going to create one."

Jiraiya held up his hands before making every single hand-seal of the main twelve that they learned and had been tested on every year to make sure they remembered. They didn't know why they needed to learn them since they never did anything with them, but it was seared into their brains at this point.

Suddenly, the size of Jiraiya's sheer presence flared and alarmed Naruto and Tenten.

We. Don't. Care… about what it takes." He said, "If there's a problem, we find a way to solve it, even if it hurts like hell. Even if it seems impossible."

That was why he was conditioning their lung capacity to absurdly high levels. As far as freaky-weird things went, this was the simplest thing to do. Practice, and sheer force of will would be what pushed it beyond the limits of what was humanly possible. They would be fine. All three of them had been broken in to ignore the natural reaction from their bodies telling them to stop doing unhealthy things to themselves.

Out of the three though, only Naruto was really guaranteed to push past it and possibly reach his level. That kid would push a nickel through a steel wall if it meant leveling up. Jiraiya was fairly certain that with enough reasoning that it would make him stronger, he could get Naruto to roll around shirtless on a bed of coals.

Either way, they'd been doing well. Maybe he could get to the practical part of other things they could do with the kind of lung capacity he was making them develop, "I've got a jutsu for each of you. You've got to practice them outside though."

XxX

(With Shikamaru – Industrial Outskirts of Town)

When night fell, Shikamaru took it upon himself to lead Takeda, Ukita, and Niijima to a place where Takeda could possibly find out something to help him in his task of seeking a real master of boxing. Shikamaru didn't know anything about that, but with where he was taking them there was a better chance than if he let Takeda keep searching on his own.

Takeda was dressed in warm-up pants and a windbreaker as Shikamaru had told him to come dressed to fight. Ukita came along as well wearing a Judo gi, deciding to take that warning to heart as well, even if he was just intending to come along for support.

"See your problem is, you keep searching gyms." Shikamaru said, hands shoved into his pockets as he led the motley crew into a warehouse on the waterfront that seemed to be packed full of people, "That's fine for the sport boxing you used to do. But you want the kind of no-holds-barred boxing that could take on anyone."

"So you took us here?" Niijima asked, looking around at the people, all rather mean looking individuals and roughnecks. He came because anything involving his 'underlings' and getting stronger was directly important to him and his ambitions, "Isn't this-?"

"Yeah that's right." Shikamaru confirmed without hearing the rest of the question. There were two rings, one with a cage, and an open dirt pit. All separate arenas for full-contact, brutal fighting, "This is an underground fighting arena. If you want help, this is the best place to start. The kind of master you want isn't going to be anywhere near a traditional gym."

Ukita's wide eyes were hidden behind his glasses as he took a look at the fights going on in all three settings, "This seems a little… much isn't it? I mean…" The sight of a man getting hit hard enough to spray blood across the first row of observers to his fight filled the Judoka's vision, "This is kind of out of the box isn't it?"

That was what Takeda was looking for though. And Shikamaru had a point. The kind of boxing he wanted to do, even if someone in any of the gyms he'd visited knew of a person that fit the bill, that boxer would be an outcast to the actual sport.

So all that mattered now was how they were going to find what they were looking for.

Niijima managed to gather all three of the others around him in something of a protective triangle, just in case, as they walked through the arena, "Shikamaru, how do you know about this place?"

A sigh came from Shikamaru, as it wasn't really something he was proud of, but hey, it was a part of his colorful history, "I was twelve and had borrowed money from Naruto to pay for my apartment. It was what his parents had left him. He was a good guy about it and lent me six months worth of rent, never asked me to pay him back or even brought it up again either."

A reason why he was willing to stick by Naruto when the chips were really down. He doubted Naruto even remembered it, as if giving him money to live was just a thing.

"Eventually I was running low, and again, I was twelve and didn't have any skills." Shikamaru continued to explain, "I found out about this place, and every two months or less I'd come here and fight enough to get money."

"And you won?"

"Well yeah." Shikamaru said with a shrug, "You can use weapons in all of the fights, and I use metal wire, so I tied guys up, took my money and left." Odds against him no matter who he fought were usually so high that one decent win would net him at least 100 times what he put in to begin with, "One quick fight, I'd roll out with the money before anyone could even ask questions or get my name and that was that."

"Why not just lose and bet against yourself?" Niijima thought, his pragmatic evil shining through in the form of thinking of staging a fix.

"Weren't you listening?" Shikamaru asked, "Odds against me never got any better than 100 to 1. I'd have to bet 100 just to make 1 if I bet against myself, and I'd have to get beaten up too anyway, so I fought to win."

He was fortunate that he looked so nondescript that he was easy to forget. He was able to come back every few months and win one fight before taking off again. He never got greedy. He had a system and it worked for him until it no longer became necessary.

It was also a reason for him to keep training even after he had technically retired. So when the Ragnarok mess had started he'd been in more than good enough shape to deal with what came his way.

Takeda was excited. He was ready, "So what's the plan?"

Shikamaru's answer was short and sweet, "Simple. You fight, and me and Niijima'll watch the crowd until we see someone interested in the moves you're using. You've got to fight as impressive as you can otherwise this won't work even if there is a boxing master here."

"But…" Takeda blinked, not getting how this was any sort of plan, "Everyone is going to be interested in the fight. That's why people are here. To watch the fights. How are you going to pick anyone out?"

Niijima just laughed and gave Takeda a few pats on the back, "Oh, you might be light years ahead of me when it comes to fighting, but I'm the General for a reason. Nothing escapes my sensor." He said as an antenna of hair stuck up on top of his head, "Just leave it to us."

"If there's a master of boxing, he won't be cheering or impressed by what you do unless you really surprise him." Shikamaru told Takeda, "But the fact that you're using boxing is going to get his attention no matter what since it doesn't pop up much around here. I've sure never seen a boxer in this place."

Best case scenario from Shikamaru's point of view, they were able to spot someone in enough time that Takeda didn't have to fight that much and be at risk. Worst case scenario, they didn't find anyone and they only wound up wasting a night.

"For that plan to work this way…" Ukita said in a surprisingly aware moment, "…You've either got to find who you're looking for by the time Takeda's first fight is over, or he's got to keep winning."

"I never said it was going to be easy. Just simple." Shikamaru reasoned, "I told you already, are you going to accept it and sit back, or get pissed off and do something about it?"

Takeda Ikki looked at his hands to find that his fists were shaking. Not in apprehension or fear, but in excitement. The tanned, white-haired teen hadn't felt this close to reaching the end of his search since he'd begun it. He felt confident in Shikamaru's arrangement, even if it boiled down to nothing other than dumb luck and chance.

It might end up being a long night, but regardless, game on.

He was feeling lucky tonight.

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – The Next Day)

"This is horrible." Naruto said, moving around on his end of a funky-looking balance beam. In his hands he held his weighted chain at the ready to use at a moment's notice. Across from him was Kenichi, trying to keep the beam from touching the ground on either side at all costs.

Another brainchild of Koetsuji Akisame.

A new machine idea, meant to inspire balance. Both Naruto and Kenichi stood on a balance beam on a metal platform, separated by a rubber center with metal plates underneath where each end would touch the ground. Each time an end touched a plate, the corresponding side would get a significant jolt of electricity. Also, falling off onto the platform would result in an unfiltered shock due to the electric current running through it.

Naruto and Kenichi were meant to spar on this device. But they weren't allowed to simply stand in place once they found a sweet spot that would allow them both to balance safely. If they didn't move, both of them would get shocked for inaction.

Akisame bore witness to the spectacle of this exercise, "It's necessary to speed up Kenichi-kun's growth after his fight with Tanimoto-kun. We can't put any limitations on how we push him to reach his next level. YOMI is a completely different beast from Ragnarok." He was quite proud of his newest creation, "A machine that will not only teach Kenichi to keep up his Seikuuken while being forced to think of something else such as his balance, but will also train him to fight for territory with the technique."

Reaching the rubber safe point of the center was the key for either fighter in this exercise, but stuck with the use of the chain, Naruto couldn't rush his approach and fight over it with Kenichi once he got there. It was more nuanced than that due to the rules set upon him by Shigure. A real fight for territory on the beam.

"Why am I doing it then?" Naruto asked, sending out his chain in an attack that Kenichi nimbly avoided, forcing the two to take more steps to adjust. Naruto's thing was to get Kenichi to move backwards while Kenichi tried to come forward to close the distance, also forcing Naruto to move forward and get close enough to engage in order to keep his end from touching the plate on the ground, "I've got balance for days."

"Kenichi-kun needs a sparring partner." The master of Jujitsu said calmly, "This machine can only work properly with two people."

"Why not use Miu-chan then?"

"Aside from the fact that she does housework during this time of the day?" Akisame asked rhetorically, stroking his mustache, "Kenichi doesn't do his best against her, even though he should know better by now."

"Elbow in." Shigure coached to Naruto's motion of rotating the attack end of the chain, "The tighter the elbow of your swinging arm… the quicker your chain will spin with less wasted arm movement."

Naruto nodded and spun around to swing his chain in a wide pattern Kenichi's way. Kenichi went to harmlessly deflect it with his arm and keep moving forward into dangerous territory according to the Seikuuken only for the chain to wrap around his arm instead of the weight being redirected.

"Huh?" Kenichi said at finding his limb wrapped before getting pulled forward on the beam, causing the balance to shift and the end on his side to hit the electrified plate, "Yipe!" He got the center of balance back and attempted to use his Jujitsu to fight against the grip, "It won't be that easy."

Naruto felt his body jerk and had to hunker down to keep from being easily budged by Kenichi. His strength training really was shining through now, putting a big grin on his face, "Finally. I always knew you could be strong bud. Those YOMI pricks can come and get their asses kicked."

Kenichi grinned at the moment of dual recognition he had with Naruto. Naruto was beginning to really see him as a true martial artist able to endure real challenges, not just his friend out learning how to defend himself.

Whoever was in YOMI, whenever they wanted to bring it on, it didn't matter. Both of them would be ready, and it wouldn't just be them. They had more people at their backs as well. Takeda looking to improve himself, Naruto's nuke-nin allies training, and the rest of the Shade Alliance wouldn't let things lie just like that. They were all ultra-competitive and wouldn't allow themselves to be left in the dust.

Things were going to grow to be nasty sooner than later, but that was what a network of friends were for.

But in this instance, they'd both stayed still for too long and took a nasty shock, only enhanced by the fact that they were both connected by a metal chain, making a complete circuit.

"YOW!"

Goddamn Ben Franklin.

XxX

Watching from the outside floor of the dojo building, Kensei and Hayato drank tea and observed the training, "YOMI are the disciples of Yami." Hayato said from deducing the pieces of what had been revealed thus far, "Yami hasn't made any moves in quite some time, but now they're targeting the disciples."

"It's understandable." Kensei said, "The strongest disciples will make the strongest masters one day. Control over that would set the future before it ever even gets here."

"As our number one disciple, Ken-chan is a target." Hermit had shown that much from the battle. This was why his training was being enhanced even more. Fighting to a standstill wouldn't be enough the next time. Yami wouldn't be satisfied until their disciples took Kenichi's life in combat, "…And Naruto-kun is as well."

Even if Naruto wasn't the number one heir to the martial arts styles of Ryouzanpaku's masters, he was Shigure's number one weapons apprentice. She had taught him more than how to use the manriki-gusari. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

With Ryouzanpaku's status as the place where the strongest gathered, the battle for the future wouldn't be complete for Yami and YOMI until all of the masters were destroyed, and all of the disciples with them.

Naruto, Kenichi, and to a significantly lesser extent Miu.

And then there was the little issue with Konohagakure that seemed to lurk in the dark, solved for now, but that wouldn't last. Not a chance.

Times were going to get rougher than ever. And Kenichi, even after all he'd been through, hadn't learned a lesson that Naruto had a long time ago, that had only been solidified through the experience in his battle with Neji.

He'd felt the danger of it, but Kenichi _still_ hadn't felt the true desperation of fighting for his life.

Oh well. They would handle things as they came. That was the way Ryouzanpaku flowed.

* * *

**I've slept in my car. I've slept on floors. I've rambled on in my author's notes making no sense at all... err... yeah... like right now.  
I'm not sure why I'm even saying any of this.  
Maybe it's because I'm so f'ing tired.  
Maybe it's because I'm grateful for being alive.  
Maybe it's just because I'm f'ing crazy.  
Maybe I should just go to bed. After all, I haven't slept in two days. Caffeine free because I can't afford it thank you.**

**I despise everything, including you and especially myself. Except if you're Forrest Griffin, Chael Sonnen, or Phil Brooks. You guys are cool.**

**Saturday's UFC 162 pay per view was pretty damn good. The fights were pretty sweet and that main event almost made my viewing party collectively shit bricks.**

…**Anderson Silva, sandbagging his shit against Chris Weidman got knocked out in epic fashion and lost the title. Damn it. I wish I had money to bet on that fight. The odds probably would have been amazing. Good work Weidman. You did what lesser men such as myself have dreamed of and trained for years to accomplish.**

**But more importantly-.**

**You stole my dream Weidman! You stole my dream! **_**I**_** was supposed to be the one to do that! Me! Not you! Me!**

**I'm going to start the countdown clock though for six months, because Silva's going to get an immediate rematch if he doesn't really stick to that thing he said about not fighting for the title any longer. If he goes home, gets pissed, and signs for a new fight the timer will be on, and when it runs down to zero Silva is going to eat that man's soul. **

**And if he doesn't, and Weidman can fend him off or this rematch never takes shape in the slightest, this is here for posterity so you can laugh at my incorrectness at a later date. My gift to you, because I know people like doing that.**

**Kenchi out.**


	21. For My Master

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. Double my sorrows why don't you? Why stab a man once when you can do it twice just to make sure he stays down?

**Chapter 21: For My Master**

* * *

"Uh-un." Naruto said, standing in front of the door to Shigure's room, "Not again. No way. I'm already breaking my neck trying to get in as much time here as I can and you're about to ditch me again."

To his credit, Naruto had been reasonable when he'd first arrived that Sunday morning to Ryouzanpaku for his allotted training and had heard that he could go home due to it being cancelled. The reason for that was due to Shigure going out on another one of her mysterious missions to do… whatever it was she did when she left.

Fuurinji Hayato left all the time and wandered around, so it wasn't that weird.

But when he said that it was cool if she was leaving, and that he would totally be willing to go along on this trip since he would only miss the last day of school that week if he went with her and they made it back in a reasonable amount of time (and if he missed more school, boo-hoo), Shigure simply responded with a casual dismissal.

"Not taking… you."

Her reasoning being that if he went with her to where she was going, he might die.

Naruto was not a fan of getting ditched. Even more than that, he was not a fan of being underestimated by any means by people that knew him. People doing things to 'protect' him pissed him off.

In walked Sakaki from outside, holding his personal groceries, mostly consisting of beer. Upon seeing Naruto taking a seat with his back directly against Shigure's sliding door, he stopped and stared down at the boy, "Found out about Shigure leavin'?"

"Yup."

"Tryin' to convince her to let you go?"

"Yup."

"Any luck?"

"…I'm workin' on it."

That was good enough as a 'no' for the Karate master, as he just shrugged and continued on to his room until he stopped and noticed a few bandaged burns and singes on Naruto's face, "Why do you have burns brat? What, did you headbutt a box of matches or a lit candle this morning?" He commented upon his departure.

"All of my hate Karate Bum." Naruto shot back at him as he left.

Naruto actually _did_ have to headbutt stuff the night before due to practicing his taijutsu with Jiraiya, but that wasn't where the burns were from. Jiraiya was forcing him to endure more hazardous horrors in order to learn the next insanely dangerous jutsu that he wanted to teach him.

He'd spent all of Saturday getting chewed up and spit out, and it was terrible.

The man didn't seem to understand that the human body had limits to how much work it could endure in a short amount of time. Either he didn't understand, he just didn't care, or he realized that Naruto wasn't the one to be fettered by common human limitations. All of the training he pumped into two hours in the morning and two hours at night during weekdays was just incredible. The man could maximize his time with the ninja kids to the extreme, and there was still one training session in the afternoons that Naruto usually missed due to training at Ryouzanpaku.

God only knows what typically went on during _that_ session. Jiraiya with Shikamaru and Tenten all to himself, without a third to train? Pray for them.

Continuing to wait, Naruto watched Kenichi crawl down the hallway instead of walk. Beaten to a pulp from the aggressive training that the other masters were putting him through after the threat of YOMI became common knowledge to the others.

"W-What?" Kenichi muttered tiredly upon reaching Naruto in his path, "Naruto-san is that you? I'm not crawling to the afterlife?" What was that bright light he was moving towards then?

"No." Naruto told him, rolling his eyes at all of the drama. He understood that they worked him hard, harder than most people as Kenichi's training regimen was extreme, but he didn't have to sell it like that, "What's wrong with you? Shouldn't you be used to this by now?"

"I keep thinking that too… but then it gets worse."

Well, Kenichi really had only been training ultra-hard for eight months. With the pace that his progression kept getting sped up, it was understandable that he wasn't used to the pace yet. He probably wouldn't ever be used to it until he left discipleship.

Kenichi pulled himself up against the wall by Shigure's door and sat against it, deciding to take a break before he continued crawling off to his room, "So what are you doing out here?"

"Shigure's gonna ditch me again." Naruto said, resolutely crossing his arms over his chest. Sunday was his day to spend the whole day around Shigure, Kenichi, and Miu, "Not happening. I mean, if I didn't come here to train I'd be stuck with Ero-sennin for three straight sessions. Fuck that. If the two people teaching me are gonna take turns trying to see who can kill me first, I at least wanna be around the one of 'em that's hot… and that was totally not me talking just now." He added on as an afterthought once Kenichi stared at him owlishly.

It was the Jiraiya. It was beginning to burn into his soul. Just as long as he didn't start watching porn in the living room in broad daylight while eating a bowl of cereal like Jiraiya did. As long as that never happened he'd be fine.

The door Naruto was sitting against slid open, ending with Naruto's leaning body tilting back against the legs of the very woman he'd been talking about. Turning his head up, Naruto looked straight into the downwardly gazing light purple eyes of his weapons teacher who was holding a small travel bag.

The stare-off carried on for several seconds until Naruto gave her a huge grin, prompting Shigure to step over him, shut her door back, and begin walking down the hall. He got a look all up her skirt, but she didn't seem to care, "Be good Naruto. I'll see you and Kenichi… soon." Her pace didn't stop even when Naruto latched onto one of her legs and let her drag him around on the floor, "I won't be gone for long."

"Take me with you."

"No."

"Please?"

"Too… dangerous."

That prompted Naruto to let go of her legs just as they made it into the common area of the Masters' Quarters. Akisame had just entered after cleaning up the dojo from Kenichi's training, "It's probably for the best that you don't go with her Naruto. You really might die."

"Well if I die that just means I suck too bad to live." Naruto figured that they'd been over this already. The prospect of getting killed didn't bother him nearly as much as it would have bothered most people not of the ninja persuasion, "What's she doing that's so bad that I can't even know about it? She won't even tell me what she's leaving for."

"It's personal to her Naruto." Akisame said, "If she doesn't want others involved, it's her business. After all, she believed in your ability to handle your own problem. Mostly."

Naruto grumbled, accepting the point as he sat up correctly on the floor, "I guess… but damn it, I owe you guys _something_." He reasoned, "I mean I almost died helping Sakaki with his b.s. mission in Chinatown and opened a whole can of worms that almost ruined my life, and all we ever do is bitch at each other. If I can almost get myself killed five times over for _that_ guy, I can do something worthwhile for Shigure. At least, that's what I think."

Even if she didn't think he was strong enough to deal with it, he wasn't trying to go to in order to prove he was strong. It was something he wanted to do to show her that he appreciated her training him. In reality, while he was paying the cost for training at Ryouzanpaku it wasn't really that much money at all in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't enough to convey what he had been getting out of it.

Before she reached the door, Shigure stopped and turned around after hearing what Naruto had to say and taking it all in, "Even if it's dangerous, and… is almost certain to get you hurt or killed?"

Naruto stood ramrod straight and snapped off a military salute with his right hand, "Genin-level ninja Uzumaki Naruto available for duty and volunteering for the super-secret fact-finding mission… that isn't really a secret."

"Fine. Come on. Bring all of your gear."

She'd have him change into actual fighting clothes on the way, because this wasn't the kind of time for him to run around in street clothes. It wasn't safe.

People shouldn't grin when they're given a choice of doing something that might get them killed, especially when they chose that option. But lo and behold, Naruto grabbed his shoes, grabbed his pack, and set on out with Shigure to do whatever it was she was leaving to do.

Akisame just smiled and shook his head before heading down the hall, "He's good for her."

But, it wasn't just her that wanted to keep him away from this mission, it was him as well. What Shigure was about to do, chances were that it would take her extremely close to Yami, and after knowing his parents and telling Shigure what he could about them before their time came, Akisame didn't want Naruto anywhere near that organization and Shigure agreed.

If he remained around them he would have to face Yami eventually though, and one day the facts of what really happened to his parents would come out.

As he walked he noticed Kenichi sitting against the wall by her door, temporarily taking his mind off of the thought, "Oh, I thought you were going to your room to rest Kenichi-kun?"

Kenichi just groaned.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Kugatachi-Ryuu Dojo)

Shikamaru felt extremely sore and tired. Honestly. He wasn't allowed to half-ass things in training any longer with Jiraiya being the one to steer the ship. Anytime he tried to skip out or anything of the like, he wound up having to make it up with three times the length and intensity that Naruto and Tenten had to train.

Apparently if Jiraiya was going to train someone, he was intent on making sure that they weren't going to die on the first serious incident they got into under his tutelage. Either that or he'd rather kill them off to ensure that such a thing didn't happen and tarnish his name as a teacher of high-class ninjas.

The only ninja he'd ever trained before this was Naruto's dad, so technically his track record was 1/1 in building an awesome ninja.

So when he heard that Tenten was being allowed a reprieve on that particular day because apparently she wanted to visit a friend that was injured a short while back and Naruto was out on a mission so he wouldn't be appearing for evening training he jumped all over the break and decided to make sure Jiraiya did nothing to push his physical and mental limits any further by leaving with Tenten.

He really should have asked exactly where she was going before he wound up sitting in front of several weapon-wielding women that really weren't happy to see a man there. Naruto was right. They were _really _not keen on having guys around.

"I feel like I'm on lockdown or something…" Shikamaru muttered to himself, sitting on the floor of the dojo while all eight of the Valkyries more or less had him surrounded, weapons out just in case, "I wish this would hurry up already."

Not too far away, Tenten sat aside and watched Freya attempt to work through the pain of her injuries suffered from Berserker to keep her technique up and continue training, "You really shouldn't be practicing so soon after what happened to you, but considering who I live with I'm used to people not caring much about their health."

Freya's staff moved smoothly from technique to technique as she listened to her former underling in the Valkyries talk to her, "It's good to see that you're happy. You just seemed to be going through the motions when you were with us, but you seem stronger now. I'd like to spar with you sometime."

'I'd better be stronger now.' Tenten thought to herself before shaking it all off, "We can hold off on that." Until she stopped ending each day feeling like her arms and legs were going to fall off, "And let's just say I've found some people in the same difficult situation as me, and we sort of feed off of each other's hardship."

And harder days still were a-comin' if Jiraiya's words were to be taken at face value. As of press time she, Shikamaru, and Naruto were marked. It was just a matter of who was coming to collect on them, when they'd do it, and if they themselves were strong enough to fend them off.

Speaking of those people, "I noticed that Uzumaki didn't come along with you to see how I was recovering today." Freya said, concealing her actual contemplation of this point.

"Well he had a mission to go on with his weapons sensei. That and the Valkyries kind of scare him."

"Why?"

"The same reason they're scaring Shikamaru." Tenten pointed out, alluding to how Shikamaru seemed hesitant to even scratch his nose lest he receive some sort of wrath for it, "Why do the girls not like my roommates?"

"Uzumaki embarrassed all of them by himself. That and they more or less blame the two of them for taking you away from us."

"Do you blame them?"

"I… can't." Freya admitted, "Honestly I felt somewhat betrayed at first. I figured that even if there was a problem that kept you from feeling safe or feeling like you belonged with us, there was something we could do. But you seem more content now than you ever were with us. I guess it was the right thing to do to put my faith in that person."

"Why'd you do that by the way? Let me go without a fight just because Shikamaru backed me up?" It couldn't have just been because of the giant scramble that was the mall incident. At another time, Freya would have fought them both anyway to adhere to Ragnarok's policies which became her own.

"He wasn't the person I was putting faith in." Freya said with a shake of her head, "I meant Uzumaki." She tried to ignore the grin that spread across Tenten's face at that point and failed miserably, "What's with that look? Was I wrong?"

Holding her hands up defensively, Tenten just shook her head, "No, no. It's not that. It's just… I thought you didn't like him Freya-chan."

"It's kind of hard to continue disliking someone that saved your life." Also, she'd started softening her stance on Naruto even before that point as well. But she had appearances to keep up either way.

At the moment, her stern appearance was betrayed by the hint of red on her darkened cheeks. Even from Tenten's mostly side-based view it was visible. And she was getting a kick out of it.

"Sure. I hear you. Whatever you say."

XxX

(With Naruto and Shigure – Rural Area in Japan)

"You're so slo~~~w." Shigure pointed out in a drawl, waiting for Naruto to reach the crest of a forested hill that she'd led him through, "I'm… not taking any breaks for you. We're almost there, so keep your guard up."

Naruto shortly thereafter reached her side on the hilltop. Per Shigure's instructions, on the train ride out he changed into clothes that could actually be considered combat-wear; the same sort of dark colored, lightweight clothes that he wore for his fight with Neji, arms covered in dark wraps up to his elbows. She wasn't particularly pleased with his fuctional wear, but he didn't have any official uniform, so that was the best she was going to get.

"I'm not slow, you're just ultra-fast." And like hell he needed any breaks! Cross-country prepared him for this! …Kind of. He snorted like a bull at the effort he'd been exerting ever since they'd gotten off at the nearest train station thirty miles away, "I hate the forest though. I'm more of an urban ninja."

At that moment, Shigure raised her arm and pointed directly at a small town nestled in the hills, "Town." He could see that, "Follow." And once again, Shigure took off through the trees, faster than Naruto could keep up with.

"Fuck." Naruto said before pumping blood back to his legs in order to jump up into the trees in an effort to try and keep pace with Shigure. She was not taking it easy with the pace she was cutting. When they'd gotten to the trees he'd been forced to follow her by tracking the leaves she kicked up and the branches she disturbed in her wake. Tracking wasn't his strong suit, but he was either going to get better at it here or get left in the dust, "Can't wait… 'til I'm that fast."

Once again, by the time he reached the outskirts of the town, Naruto found Shigure standing there waiting for him. He was running as fast as he could the entire time. There was one thing he could have done to go faster, but he wasn't about to do that unless it was worth the cost it would take.

Shigure didn't say anything. Instead, Tochumaru popped up on her head and used one of his front paws to tap at the wrist of his other front paw as if to say he'd taken too long for her tastes.

He was getting no stale snacks from the bottom of Naruto's bag for that pandering little stunt. Not any time soon.

"So what are we here for?" Naruto asked as they started to walk through the town, "You really didn't say anything about what we're doing and I asked you like a hundred times on the way here."

"It's a long story." The lovely mistress of all weaponry told Naruto as they passed a team of roofers sitting on an old-looking house at the end of their work day, "Short version, there's a weapon collector here with an important… sword. One that I need to get back."

Get back?

"Someone stole from you and got away with it!?" Naruto couldn't believe it. He'd been trying to rob her for years and someone else pulled it off right under his nose? That was bullshit! Talk about a shot to the ego, "Come on, how's that fair?"

Shigure covered her mouth momentarily, figuring that she'd simply worded it wrong, "It wasn't stolen and it wasn't obtained from me. It's from my father. He used to make swords… for bad people."

"Oh."

"I can't… let that be my father's legacy. Especially as Yami is beginning to move again." Shigure told Naruto, "That much has been proven by what the Elder has found recently in his travels. Duck."

"Huh?" Naruto did what she told him to on cue however and managed to avoid a broadsword of all things lopping his head off.

The roofers they had passed were now armed and attacking, and looked like they meant business. Instinctively after nearly dying from a rear attack, Naruto planted his hands on the ground and threw a double mule kick straight to the chest that knocked him back to the ground. Propelling himself forward with the force of the kick, Naruto rolled through and stood back up behind Shigure, pulling out his kusarigama as he did.

After putting his 'not-master' between himself and the armed attackers, Naruto blinked and felt at the top of his head, making sure he still had his scalp, "Wait, I hit that guy. Someone was willing to attack you, and _I_ actually hit them?"

"They're not masters." Shigure said, not even bothering to draw her own sword in the face of the six armed assailants after them, "If they were I… would have removed you from the fight." By kicking him through a wall or something, just as long as he was out of the way, and quickly, "…From how they moved, you can fight them."

"…What?" Before anything else could be asked, Shigure had jumped onto the top of a nearby rooftop to perch and watch Naruto fight several grown men with various sharp instruments of destruction, "Shit!"

He quickly started up with the spinning of his chain, fast and able to get good momentum with a single movement of his wrist, just like Shigure had taught him. His move was quick enough to intercept the first man that decided to charge him with a sword. With a toss, Naruto's weighted chain wrapped around the blade, allowing him to yank it down just as the man got into range.

Defenses down, Naruto wrapped the other end of the chain around wrist and forearm, clutching the other end-weight in his hand as he used his forward speed feint to punch his enemy square in the jaw, rendering him unconscious as he rushed past him and continued on to the next ones.

Pulling his chain tight around his hands for grip, Naruto lifted his hands to catch a downward sword strike with the tightened links. A twist of his body with a swing of an elbow knocked the sword arm of the attacker out wide as two more came in from behind to chop Naruto up from behind.

Stepping up off of the knee of the man in front of him, Naruto improvised his twisting backward flip kick, Sorasake Keru, nailing the first man in the face and finishing the flip just as the other two came in, smashing them both on the tops of their heads with the heels of his feet and sending their chins down to bounce off of the dirt. The sudden move was so fast they never even got to swing their weapons at him.

After landing that instinctive alteration to one of his favorite moves, allowing him to take out three attackers at once from all around instead of just one, Naruto seemed surprised by his own actions, "Holy crap, that was a total shot in the dark! Did that actually work?"

Well Jiraiya explained to him that the Sorasake Keru was meant to be used in a situation where he was surrounded so that he could attack and keep an eye on what was happening behind him at the same time. That certainly manifested itself here.

It was supposed to be used with weaponry however instead of him using his feet for a second and third attack.

"Two left." Shigure pointed out helpfully, watching spectator-style with Tochumaru, "…Oh. Nevermind." She concluded as she saw that the last two had already run away. Naruto looked ready to pursue until she pulled her kusarigama seemingly out of her clothing and wrapped him up in the chain to stop him, "No. Don't waste anymore time."

Waste time? What? This could have been over in a heartbeat if she'd have fought instead. Not that Naruto wanted her to fight his battle for him, even if it was a fight that he hadn't picked for himself, but now that it had started he really wanted to see it through. His blood was boiling for a finish.

But as long as he was wrapped in that chain there wasn't anything he could do even if he had been inclined to disobey his gorgeous 'not-sensei'.

"Yes ma'am…" The chain slacked and allowed Naruto to free himself and re-stash his own chained weapon.

Remembering everything he did, Shigure gave him a quick critique of the fight, "You did fine, but I didn't like your… last move." What? But that move was totally awesome. He was even going to name it when he got the chance. It was pretty practical, "You're not quick enough to do that attack safely against armed opponents. If they were better they could have cut a leg off. Your Kawarimi would have been better to try."

Meh. He _could_ have replaced himself with the guy he'd stopped in the first place and jumped off of, in hindsight. More than likely the other two wouldn't have noticed and would have cut their own guy, giving Naruto an opening to follow up in a safer method than the way he let it all hang out with his admittedly flashy finish.

Oh well. You couldn't please everyone, and at least it was something to remember for later. Something to grow on as it was. It made sense. If he was fighting someone unarmed he probably would have been praised. Shigure had to be harsh in her critiques because there was no room to screw up when dealing with weapons.

"We're in the right place." Shigure said, confidently storing her kusarigama, "Armed Division members."

"Wha-wha?"

"-Of Yami."

"Oh." Naruto said, taking note of the four people he'd beaten soundly. They were barely better than the Valkyries, and he'd still wrecked them, "They're not that tough." He really must have been getting better and more used to dealing with weapon-wielding enemies.

"Dumb… muscle." Shigure said, jumping back down to the ground and brushing her hand across Naruto's cheek as she walked past him to continue leading the way, "Those were not the disciples of a true master. Just low-ranking agents. We need to find the sword."

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Rural Town)

A tall, muscular tan-skinned man with dark, long braided hair sat on a fence at the edge of a dust path that lead to a small house. He wore a tight long-sleeved top that flowed past his waist like a robe, along with similarly colored pants and a necklace comprised of fangs. His sharp, cruel eyes possessed lines running down his face from underneath them.

All five of his skull-ringed fingers drummed impatiently on the hilt of his broad, curved scimitar sword until he saw the suited underlings under his command drag a heavily beaten and cut up man outside, holding a cloth-covered bundle in his arms.

They dropped him at the head swordsman's feet and kicked him until he released his possession of the bundle that was picked up by one of the men that had beaten him and searched his property for whatever was inside of it.

Turning to their leader, the bundle was opened to reveal a broadsword in its sheath. Revealing the steel of the blade just a hint as it glowed proudly for the inanimate object it was, so did the eyes of the large swordsman that stared upon it, "He was protecting this above everything else. Bantou Master, is this what we've come to collect for Yami?"

"To hell with Yami." The Bantou Master said with no small sense of hunger in his eyes. Hunger for the sword that held the true secrets of iron. One of the finest blades in the entire world, created by a true master blacksmith unmatched by almost any in the world, "I might have been sent here by them, but this is for me."

"N-No, not my prized sword." The bloodied man pleaded, slowly climbing onto his knees in order to beg, "I've searched for most of my life for a weapon that fine. It's the centerpiece of my collection. There isn't a blade in the world as fine."

There was disgust in the eyes of not only the Bantou Master, but in the men that followed him, as well as a teenager that he kept close by to watch and study everything. Attired the fairly normal garb of jacket, boots, and jeans, he had darkened skin like his master, and long black hair. Cold, detached eyes looked on at the scene as the handle of the sword that was similarly curved but less broadened than his master's shone in the setting sunlight.

"Andaka." The Bantou Master said.

"Yes master." The youth standing close watch said obediently to the man that taught him his art.

"Let me reiterate a beginner's point for you right now, just to drive it home. Swords aren't meant for collecting." The hulking swordsman said, grabbing the pilfered weapon away from the Yami goon as he inspected it closely. It didn't take long at all for him to nod in confirmation that this was what he was looking for. And with that being confirmed, he brutally cut down the man that had formerly been in the possession of the weapon utilized, splitting his body clean in half and causing quite the mess, "…They're meant to be used."

And what a blade he had to use.

Despite having been forged quite some time ago there wasn't the slightest sign of wear on the blade. He knew that this… _collector_, would never have the talent or drive to use a sword, but it had to have had an actual owner before him. The man that forged it wouldn't have done so without someone it was intended for.

Well it was going to be used to fulfill its original intent once more. It was back in the hands of someone that would use it to spill the blood of his enemies.

XxX

(With Naruto and Shigure)

It didn't take them very long to arrive at the destination as their unknown enemies, but it was after they had already left.

They'd also left a very serious calling card.

Namely in the form of a grown man that had been split diagonally in twain out on the middle of a dirt road in front of what was presumably the property of the deceased. The man hadn't even been a martial artist. His hands had no calluses, his muscle mass was basically nonexistent. This was just a regular man with an appreciation for the artwork of weaponry.

And he'd been killed so viciously.

"Never turn into the kind of person capable of… such callous bloodshed." Shigure said in a heartfelt tone, "If you ever did, I would die."

"If I was ever the kind of guy that would do this…" Naruto replied with a deep gulp, "…Against somebody that can't even fight back, I think I'd rather have you kill me."

Naruto had seen death before. Rather recently actually in the form of someone he'd actually wound up killing himself in Neji. That wasn't even a quarter as violent as what he had to look at there and then.

He wasn't going to vomit or anything over the top like that, even at the sight of the most graphic thing he'd ever seen in person. As over-the-top as he tended to be from time to time when it came to his gut reaction on things, Naruto knew that showing his panic was the worst possible thing he could do.

Yes, he knew this and did his best to keep things under wraps, but his heart hammered in his chest so hard he could feel it in his knees. It showed all over his face. Shigure couldn't consider herself an important figure, especially a teacher, if she couldn't see every nuance of discomfort on Naruto's face.

The frown on his face wasn't pronounced, but it was the subtle sort of uncomfortable look he'd have when he didn't want to address something. He couldn't keep his fingers still to save his life at the moment, the constant twitching of the small appendages at his sides, as trivial a physical action as they happened to be, were still another of the tells he had.

Of course, when she really needed to gauge his reaction to just about anything and felt the need to skip the process of trying to locate brand new hints of Naruto's discomfort, Shigure simply needed to look into his eyes and read him from there. Behind those blue orbs lay the index to that teenage bastard's soul.

"So now what?" Naruto asked, eventually finding it in himself to tear his eyes away from the recently departed. What seemed like minutes in reality only lasted maybe one at most, "This was the guy that had it isn't it? Your dad's sword?"

Shigure pointed down at the tire tracks of the vehicles they used, "…This town sits in a forested valley. There is only one way in and out for vehicles to use." And it was a way that was separated by much of the town itself and a lot of forest.

"…We're going to catch the convoy aren't we?" Shigure just nodded in response to her not-student's question, "…Which way?"

"That-…" Shigure said slowly, pointing in the appropriate direction only for Naruto to take off as fast as he could before she even finished her slow-paced answer, "-…Way." She lingered for several seconds by her lonesome until she jetted off after him.

A headstart, just to be fair and all.

Sure, she'd catch up to him in less than a minute, even at the pace he was cutting, but for a few seconds he'd feel great and then she'd bring him right back down to earth.

That was how the master-disciple relationship was supposed to work. She'd build him up a bit and then check him to keep him from getting a swelled head. It was tougher than it would have been for a normal disciple because Naruto's ego was anything but normal-sized, so she usually had to do it by completely emasculating him in increasingly more difficult ways to show him that there was always a step further that he had to reach.

Eventually, as hard as it was to believe now, the day would come where there wouldn't be much more room between the two of them for her to show him up. The day that finally began to happen, her job would be more or less done.

However-.

"Damn it! Why are you so fast Shigure? You're makin' me look bad! And I can totally see you laughing! Stop laughing!"

"Heh… heh."

-That day definitely wasn't going to be today though.

Well-trained in the art of swiftly running, Naruto's method of full-on sprinting was different from that of most others that would do so. Instead of pumping his arms alternately with each movement of his legs, Naruto's technique when traversing long distances involved him setting his center of balance far forward by bending his upper body at a degree that required pretty good balance to maintain, arms out behind him to lessen resistance.

It was still pissing him off that Shigure could keep up with him doing nothing more than jumping forward. The force she could generate with her quite lovely legs propelled her hard enough to let her lazily move with him after catching up.

Naruto oftentimes swelled with pride knowing that he was the fastest member of the Shade Alliance, at least over long distances, due to a combination of his actual speed and his stamina. But here he was, pumping his legs as fast as he could while cutting through the forest to reach the bad guys that were going to get away if they didn't catch up, and Shigure was just stepping on the neck of his ego with extreme prejudice.

Fortunately, there was only one road into, through, and out of the valley.

"Convoy… coming up." Shigure said, flicking up the nodachi on her back to show the slightest hint of steel inside of the sheath, "Be ready." Wasting no more time, Shigure left Naruto in the dust the last few hundred yards they had left to reach the cut-off spot.

Now Naruto had never actually seen Shigure fight. He'd been on the receiving end of more than a healthy share of her attacks back when he'd been infiltrating Ryouzanpaku but he never saw many of the strikes that landed against him, not that she'd ever missed anything against him.

He realized just how much that every single master of Ryouzanpaku had probably been holding back against him after he watched Kousaka Shigure slash right through the side of the lead car of the Yami convoy as if it were made of newspaper. Thank God she never used the front side of her sword against him. She almost killed him repeatedly just with the back side.

Cutting the front vehicle straight in half, she completely blocked the road with its two pieces and brought the entire progression to a halt.

Five other cars came to a stop as the armed division members of Yami began trying to pile out of the car to engage their apparent enemy. One of these cars quickly suffered, but not because of Shigure. It was because of the shock of yellow that had been trailing extensively behind her finally reaching the road himself and deciding to make an immediate impact. A smoke bomb hit the side of the car, taking its toll on the vision of the enemies inside to allow Naruto a safer approach.

Naruto dropkicked the side of a passenger's door shut just as it opened and completely shattered some poor man's arm at the elbow, but the arm had been holding a sword on the way out of the vehicle so it was totally fair game. The front door opened, but that person didn't fare any better as his clock was cleaned the second his foot touched the ground and he exposed the top of his head.

An easy target for a haymaker. No it wasn't a ninja-ey kind of attack. But seeing someone's head go through a window because you punched them through it was kind of cool.

On the other side of the car, the two rubes from that side jumped out only to be covered by a shadow, signifying Naruto falling down from the sky with a foot on each of their chests as he drove both of them to the ground violently.

With a wide grin after clearing an entire car within seconds, Naruto turned in the direction that he felt Shigure was in, "First blood is-!" He ceased in his boast when he found that every other car had been turned into idle pieces of scrap and every other person in each of them had been dealt with.

"-Mine." Shigure interrupted and amended, "…Last blood counts for more anyway." She concluded coolly as she and Naruto both slowly walked their way over to the final car that hadn't been touched yet, "Be careful."

Naruto hadn't even noticed it until it wound up being the last vehicle standing, but now that it was he could feel this aura coming from it, telling him instinctively to stay the hell away from it. Almost primal in how it was warding him away with nothing more than his own sixth sense.

The door opened and the Bantou Master stepped out with an annoyed look on his face, "A kid and a chick. Eh, I don't care. A body's a body and you're both in my way."

"Holy crap." Naruto muttered under his breath. One of the first rules of being a ninja was to never let the enemy see you sweat, but that was always more Shikamaru's thing than his. He was a very expressive young man.

"…This might be a bi~g problem." Shigure pointed out, knowing that this man was a master-level fighter, "But he has my sword."

"_My_ sword actually." The Bantou Master said while holding up the broadsword in question as he looked around at the thrashing that every single person under his command had endured. He scoffed at the sight of there being absolutely no fatalities amongst them, "Hey!" He shouted to the man driving his vehicle, "Get out here and handle the kid! I'll take the woman."

The driver's door opened and out charged a suited man at Naruto with his sword in hand, only for a kunai to hit him right in the chest and drop him before he took three steps. No one said anything in the immediate aftermath until Shigure just turned her head at Naruto and shook it, clicking her tongue in reproach.

"What?" Naruto asked in return, "That wasn't even fatal. I hit him dead-center. It wasn't like it was in the heart or something. It didn't even go that deep either."

The Bantou Master just stared down impassively at his beaten underling, "I didn't mean you. Now I've got to drive myself." Gesturing with his head back to the car he called out again, "Andaka. Kill him. I've got bigger fish to fry."

In response, Shigure just put out her hand in an expectant manner, "The sword… please."

"Certainly." The Bantou Master said before suddenly swinging the sword at her, intending to cleave her entire arm off before Naruto could even blink. Shigure simply pulled her arm away safely without so much as getting a nick on the sleeve of her kimono, "What's the matter? I thought you wanted it. By all means, come and get it Kousaka Shigure, or is that Prodigy of Swords and Weapons name just a complete load?"

Shigure just peered at him with her unreadable purple eyes, "Rude." As Andaka moved to stand by his master, Shigure softly stroked Naruto's cheek without taking her eyes off of the primary threat and the target weapon he had in his possession, "Use _that technique_… and then get out of the way."

The Bantou Master just rolled the weight of the broadsword around in his hand as he spoke to Andaka, "No mercy. Kill the boy." By now he knew who he was facing, and if that boy was her student he knew just what this battle really meant, "You've seen him move. He doesn't know the first thing about you."

It was the first conflict between Yami and Ryouzanpaku. If his disciple could destroy one of theirs and he himself could kill Shigure, it would mean that his legacy and high-ranking placement in Yami was secured.

Shigure didn't have time to give Naruto any advice about how to really deal with fighting against someone skilled that could use the scimitar, because she was forced onto the defensive with the Bantou Master's aggressive and powerful attack. Her father created the broadsword that he'd murdered for, and she needed to get it away from this person.

Naruto and Andaka made sure to protect themselves from any friendly casualties until their masters had gotten out of the way before finding themselves facing one another. Andaka just smirked and drew his sword from his back. Another of those curved kinds of weapons that he'd faced more than a few times today, 'Only he actually looks like he's got the chops and the physical training to back up holding that thing.'

This kid wasn't like the others that Naruto had fought today. The suited goon squad were all gofers with the minutest amount of training possible to make them functional, interchangeable thugs for hire. The cool, collected, practiced ease with which Andaka faced him, he had no rage at being forced to take Naruto on the way most of the others that he'd put out of commission did, whether he looked down on Naruto or not. Even with the manriki-gusari, Naruto would have to be careful to take this Andaka person on.

'Right.' Naruto thought to himself, pulling out his chain and holding it in his hands, 'This is what I actually trained the most for, dealing with swordsmen with this thing.' With that he held it at both ends with the rest of the weapon directly behind him, "Bring it on."

Andaka didn't know exactly what to make of this guy. Naruto was deadly serious and aware of how dangerous this fight had the chance to be compared to the cannon fodder he and his master had mowed through, but he seemed confident that he could handle it regardless.

Aside from that, what was with the positioning with that weapon? He was leaving himself more exposed than the conventional stance of the manriki-gusari which would have at least had the chain in front of him to try to catch and capture the blade and disarm the enemy. Now he didn't even have that.

"The way you are, this is going to be over in one strike." Andaka said, drawing his sword, "You realize that right?"

"Yeah." Naruto nodded in agreement, "This'll be over in one move." If he screwed up the technique he wouldn't have to really dwell on his failure, because he'd be dead. So he had that going for him.

Standing against one another as still as statues, Naruto and Andaka refrained from moving a muscle. He who hesitated was lost, but too eager to attack in a battle of weaponry and things could end just as badly.

'Let's do this. Make sure I don't screw this one up mom.' Naruto thought to himself, 'Kajoushuki (Spiral Cycle).' Naruto exhaled at the same time he stepped forward first to charge Andaka head-on, 'Gotta make him commit!'

Andaka had to make the first move, and he had to do it before they got too close to one another. It was like a reverse game of chicken, and he needed Andaka to pull the trigger before him.

As a swordsman, Andaka was taught that the first strike was oftentimes the most important, because that was all a battle could consist of before a life came to an end, "You must be on drugs." Andaka hissed, taking the opportunity to lash out at the copious amount of weak points Naruto had.

Got him.

Naruto's feet suddenly propelled him forward faster than Andaka's arm could swing backhand at him. But he didn't attack. He simply ghosted past Andaka, refraining from so much as brushing him as he did.

The point of the Spiral Cycle was meant to take advantage of the way that Naruto darted in and out constantly during battle. Feinting direct engagements with an enemy were the centerpiece of how he chose to fight, but he could turn harmless aversions of his movements into debilitating or outright deadly attacks just by moving past an enemy.

In this particular Spiral Cycle scenario, the moment he saw Andaka commit to attack, Naruto let go of one end of the chain just long enough for it to move past Andaka where he immediately grabbed it again. With the rest of the chain lingering behind him, Andaka basically trapped himself in a noose, and it could have gotten him anywhere, but this time Naruto aimed for the neck.

"What the- GACK!" Andaka had absolutely no time to wonder what had happened, as after being passed by Naruto, he found his neck pulled on hard enough to turn him upside-down and inside-out. If he hadn't been trained, the speed of Naruto's run and the strength of his pull could have snapped his neck. As it was anyway, it wound up dropping him on his head awkwardly where he didn't get up again.

…So there was still a fair chance that he'd broken his neck or something.

"I don't do drugs! I _AM_ drugs!" Naruto said, grinning maniacally as he stood over Andaka's motionless form. In hindsight that sounded cooler and seemed to make more sense in his head, so he had to come up with a new sort of victory one-liner, "Uh… RARIATOOOOOO-! No, damn it that's not a good one either! "

He needed to start listening to the asinine things Jiraiya said when he was tormenting them. The man was a deity at coming up with mind-crushing one-liners.

"Booooo." Shigure jeered at her not-disciple's attempt to leave a cool impression in near monotone, pausing in her fight against the Bantou Master while standing on a tree trunk to do so, "You fight better… than you taunt."

"Thanks Shi-…" Naruto felt a crushing level of futility set on his soul as the attention of the Bantou Master was firmly set upon him, "…-gure."

"Boy." The Bantou Master said in a tone of voice that didn't seem to sound very pleased about the outcome of his own disciple's fight, "Kids like you really piss me off."

"Oh fuck all kinds of-."

"-DUCK!"

Naruto had been trying to subtly reach into his supplies for something to help him with, but when Shigure yelled at him by now Naruto knew that she wanted the order completed before she even finished the statement/sentence. She _never_ yelled.

The sudden demand alarmed Naruto enough to squeeze a smoke bomb tight enough to set it off, covering his body in smoke as he simultaneously did his best to save his own neck.

In a single moment, the Bantou Master had not only thrown his curved sword that was now useless to him now that he had a blade with the secrets of iron, he rushed in with said sword to make sure he was in position to either kill Naruto, take down Shigure when she moved to protect him, or both.

CLANG!

The smoke quickly cleared with the power of the Bantou Master's swing, and needless to say he was not pleased with the results of his attack.

"I don't appreciate… you attacking my disciple." Shigure said coldly, preventing the strike of her father's crafted sword with a combination of the Bantou Master's original curved scimitar and her own nodachi. Even so, having gotten in front of such a powerful attack, it had come close enough to harming her to cut through some of the chain mail armor underneath her clothes, "Have you no understanding of a master's pride?"

The Bantou Master found himself surprised by the fact that this relatively small woman was able to hold off his attack directly.

He'd attacked Naruto to begin with for multiple reasons; because Naruto had embarrassed him by defeating his disciple Andaka in one move, because he knew that attacking Naruto would distract Shigure enough to provide him an opening to deal her a devastating blow, because even if the previous scenario failed to occur he still would have killed off what could be a potential future threat no matter how puny he appeared to be at the time.

"Grr…" Why was it so difficult to overpower her? It made no sense, "Are you talking about pride as a master-level martial artist, or pride in your own disciple?"

"By attacking my student you've violated both." Shigure said before kicking him away. Her kick was blocked but it wasn't meant to deal damage, it was meant to get him away from her not-student, "Naruto. Get out of the way. _Now_."

"Yes ma'am!" Like a soldier running for a foxhole during an artillery strike, Naruto couldn't have run away and scrambled to the top of the nearest tree he could find a safe distance away fast enough.

He was not going to stand in that woman's path right then. Fuck. That. She was pissed, and he had never seen her legitimately upset before. Shigure just wasn't that kind of woman, so if it happened there was probably a good chance she was about to wreck shop, he didn't want to be anywhere near the target zone when she did.

He did however find it to be of the utmost importance that he watch every last second of the battle… and maybe record it on his phone for posterity.

Oh who was he kidding? That cheap piece of crap wasn't good enough to pick up anyone moving as fast as Shigure was going to.

And she didn't disappoint.

"Kousaka-Ryuu: Samidare Shuriken (Kousaka Style: Summer Rain Shuriken)!" From her both of her sleeves, dozens of shuriken flew. Her arms moved so fast that despite letting go of both swords she'd been holding, gravity didn't even have time to let them drop before she grabbed them once more.

The Bantou Master blocked the small blades with a scoff at the annoying diversion. Even if she could control the trajectory of the shuriken to throw him off, it was a technique that wouldn't get anyone better than an expert-level fighter, "Trying to get behind me won't work!" Turning around with a crushing swing he came close to cutting Shigure's head off had she not dropped down. In that case she only lost the absolute end hair follicles of her long ponytail.

In a hasty retreat, Shigure fell back to the woods to avoid the Bantou Master and prevent him from getting good chances to see and strike at her. As she nimbly darted through and around the trees to keep herself out of his sight he followed. Instead of anything roundabout, the powerhouse swordsman decided to cut out the middleman and simply slash his way through every tree Shigure tried to put between them.

His straight line of pursuit against her darting method of moving trees between the two of them kept him close despite her clear speed advantage, and the constant stream of trees being thrown her way turned it all into a rather dangerous obstacle course.

To Naruto, he felt a subconscious need to put his goggles down, as if they would protect his eyes from the strain that it was taking him to keep up with what he was seeing. Watching Shigure was like trying to follow a mosquito with his eyes through a bamboo grove.

After cutting down one tree in particular, the Bantou master severed it into five segments and with the trajectory of his slashes he sent them flying Shigure's way in large chunks. She was able to dodge them, but he corralled her into a position where he could get another cut at her person.

His attack missed and blew out two trees behind his point of aim as Shigure moved past him. A quick attempt to lash out with the chain of her kusarigama to hook his leg only wound up with him stomping on the chain and pinning it down without her actually wrapping up a limb.

With a downward strike of his new broadsword, he destroyed the chain underneath his foot, rendering the chain-end of the weapon useless to her. This sword that could so easily break common iron when used by someone that could generate his kind of force, incredible.

"Have I really upset you that much by attacking your runt of a disciple?" The Bantou Master asked, trying to taunt Shigure into attacking him and making a mistake. All of this running around was getting on his nerves, "If he wasn't ready to defend that sort of attack from me it's obvious you haven't been raising him the best way."

"Which way?" Though confident that Naruto was getting stronger, Shigure was still self-conscious about being a master capable of teaching a student all on her own.

The thoughts constantly crept in. Was she doing it right? Should she have handled him more like how her master had taught her? Or maybe more like how some of the other masters of Ryouzanpaku taught Kenichi?

"The quickest way." The Bantou Master replied realizing that he'd struck a chord with that last chain of remarks when Shigure stopped in her tracks, "This is the first time you've had a disciple isn't it?" Her silence was enough of an answer for him there, "Putting all of the effort to make sure that your student learns every technique one at a time. What's the point if they're just unskilled? By doing things quickly you'll know soon enough if the person you're invested in is worth the time or not."

"Oh." Shigure said as if having come to a conclusion on something, "I see." Instead of openly voicing her opinion on the Bantou Master's opinion, Shigure just affixed her index finger and thumb in the shape of an 'L' and pressed it to her own forehead to tease her enemy, "No wonder mine… is so much better than yours."

If that was the way a so-called master that was older than her chose to treat the people he trained, he could have it. The rearing of a disciple was a display of the love and understanding one had for their combat style and the martial arts in general. Even true Satsujinken masters knew this. This Bantou Master was a talented man to make it to his level, but in what was possibly the most important part of martial arts he was lacking.

Out of anger at the stoic woman's taunt, the Bantou Master tightly gripped the handle of the sword and made to attack her again only to find by his fifth step that Shigure stood at his side. Instead of being attacked he just heard the sound of her sword being sheathed.

"W-What?"

Shigure didn't say anything else to him until she walked past him again and plucked the broadsword from his grasp. To his surprise she took it just as casually as if he'd never had any grip on it at all. It was then that he felt it. She'd definitely struck him.

Letting out a groan of pain, the entire outfit of the Bantou Master split into two and he fell to his knees before slumping over to the ground.

"Thank you." Shigure said as she walked away from the unconscious man that more than likely couldn't hear a word she was saying, "I always wonder if I'm… doing right by my student. If I'm training him correctly, teaching him the right things. If he's getting as strong under me as he could be. So many things. To think about all of it… it's scary."

'She's scared of something?' Naruto could hear every word she said, as quiet as she spoke and at the distance he was listening from up in the tree, 'What's she scared of about training me? She's awesome.'

"It's scary… because I'm proud of him." Shigure admitted, a ghost of a smile crossing her face for a split-second, "My first true disciple. Fighting and listening to you just made me understand that my way is the only way I can possibly teach him, and as long as he never turns out to be someone like you… even if he one day strayed down the Path of the Asura… I would still be proud of him."

And from that point forward if it hadn't been clearly established before, it was now official in Naruto's mind without a shadow of a doubt. He would do absolutely anything that woman asked him to do, no matter what and without question. In a heartbeat.

He would hurt himself ten times over before he ever even thought of doing anything that would cause her pain.

Moisture slid down Naruto's cheeks from his eyes. Not tears. He was _not_ crying, repeat, NOT CRYING. Guys didn't cry, definitely not him.

Damn it, he hated the woods. There was probably something he was allergic to irritating his eyes or his sinuses. That was it. Yeah, he'd be fine after getting down from that tree.

"Naruto." Shigure's voice carried out to him through the cleared out forest space that had been the site of her fight, "It's over. Come on. Lets… go home."

"Yeah, right behind you." Naruto said, clearing his throat to help it sound normal, "Just uh… retying my shoes *sniff*. Give me a sec." Tochumaru popped out of his backpack and stared at him from behind his shoulder, "If you tell her or anyone I was crying about what she said I'm gonna start putting loaded mousetraps in my bag."

XxX

(Just Outside of the Rural Town)

From a far distance, the entire mission of the Armed Division of Yami had been witnessed by two members of the junior group YOMI, meant to observe and gain something of an understanding for those that used weaponry in combat.

The actual point of the mission didn't mean much to the unarmed end, so there was no reason for the disciple group to get themselves involved. The Bantou Master simply said that if they weren't going to help they were to stay the hell out of his way.

He was the master on-hand leading the mission. It was a mission that he desired for his own devices, and he had no qualms with killing either of the two disciples because he was annoyed by them. The man was… extremely unpleasant to say the least, so the two YOMI members kept their distance.

A preteen girl with long black hair, one side of which was tied, stood at the precipice of the valley that the target town had been set in, watching as much as she could with a powerful pair of binoculars. She wore a white kimono top and traditional red Jujitsu hakama pants, with a chillingly emotionless look on the face of a girl so young.

Kushinada Chikage.

"It seems that the Armed Division wasn't up to the task once Kousaka Shigure arrived." The little girl explained to her company for the observation mission, "Andaka was even defeated in one blow by her disciple. Are you listening Jihan-san?"

"Ah-ah-ah." A wag of the finger came from the exotically garbed young man with her. He was handsome and dark-skinned with long, wavy black hair tied in a ponytail. He wore a purple outfit with royal yellow cuffs on his wrists and ankles. With a long red sash over his right shoulder, a purple belt and cape, a leopard wrap around his waist, and a functional golden crown on his head, he was barefoot even in the wilderness, "It's _Nagaraja_. Learn it Kushinada, and remember to refer to your royalty by their preferred titles little one."

The crown prince of the nation of Tidat; Radin Tidat Jihan.

Situated on a cleared space of ground with many cushions around him for comfort he lounged on his side while being attended to by the servants of his country, choosing to let the boorish job of reconnaissance be handled by those underneath his station as it were.

The little girl simply turned around for a moment to regard him before turning back to where she had been looking at the clash between Satsujinken and Katsujinken that hadn't gone very well for the Satsujinken side of things. She was not going to refer to anyone on the disciple level as her superior. As far as she was concerned, they were equals. Both of them were special people; high-level martial artists.

"You Japanese are such an anxious people." Jihan said, dismissive of the evening's events, "Andaka was the epitome of the worthless commoner. With the way he was taught, the only thing that made him dangerous was the fact that he was taught real skills with a sword. If nothing else, he understood his place as background dressing compared to his betters. If only all commoners understood this much about their position in the world."

Well there was something they could partially agree on. Andaka was skilled, but with the way he was trained he wasn't that dangerous. As Jujitsu was an art meant to assist unarmed samurai in dealing with armed opponents on the battlefield, she could have finished him in one move as well.

If you were properly taught how to deal with armed enemies he was extremely beatable, and if his opponent had been taught by Kousaka Shigure he would undoubtedly know how to deal with all sorts of weaponry. Even with a weapon exotic to Japan such as the scimitar, it would only take a bit of adjustment to deal with it for anyone taught to look for the traits of a weapon that would make it effective in combat or different from another weapon in the same family.

"So we've seen the one meant to be History's Strongest Disciple." Chikage said, "How do we identify this one, other than ninja?" She still didn't see why Odin said that his master was so interested in him, but then again she only saw him make one move against a real opponent.

"It doesn't matter." Jihan said, holding up a piece of fruit in his hand that he'd been about to enjoy, "I've done some studying on this country's culture and history. It's very interesting, the ninja in particular. Simple peasants skulking around in the dark, taking their shots from behind at their betters in the samurai and the lords of the feudal era instead of face-to-face on the battlefield where they'd be crushed; the only way they could ever hope to lash out at those dictated as their betters."

As he continued to speak on what he'd found on the ninja, his voice gained a steelier edge at the thought of what they represented. Commoners striking at those that they had no business doing anything other than bowing to.

In his growing ire at the thought of such a class of people being idealized and romanticized in cultures around the world, Jihan crushed the fruit in his hand into pulp before his anger subsided, "But that's fine. There's clearly a reason that no one talks about them anymore. And before long no one will be talking about this one either."

"So you're going to fight him yourself then?" Chikage asked.

"Of course not. I'm not about to sully my hands on a commoner such as him unless it's absolutely necessary." Jihan said confidently, "Let the other members of YOMI more eager to deal with riffraff handle one such as him."

They might have been known for their encounters with samurai and feudal lords of all sorts, but a lowly ninja had no right to be graced by the honor of doing battle with a king.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Tokyo, Japan)

It was hard for Hatake Kakashi to walk around normally and do the kinds of things he liked to do in cities around the world because of the facemask he wore. In Japan it was easier though. Because of it, people would assume he was some sort of undercover cosplayer or some kind of germaphobe just trying to avoid air-transferred sicknesses since he dressed normally most of the time along with the mask.

He had spiky silver hair, a vertical scar over his left eye with a relaxed look in them both, and wore business-casual attire of khakis and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows to walk around town regularly in. Was it really so impossible to imagine that he was a ninja?

…

Yeah, on second thought it probably was. And it wasn't like he ever hung around in one area long enough for it to matter either.

Walking out of a major bookstore with people going in and out all around him, Kakashi paid them no mind. He was too engrossed with the latest installment of a novel series. Popular all over the world, it was really only sold in Japan and western Asia, so he oftentimes had to wait until his business took him back over to that side of the world.

Killing two birds with one stone as it were, and speaking of killing…

Before long, someone fell in step with Kakashi and the scent of cigarette smoke filled his nostrils, "…Asuma one day those things'll kill you."

"It hasn't happened yet in fifteen years, so I guess I'll keep taking my chances." Asuma replied, wearing the same walking coat that he wore on his mission in Yokohama Chinatown, "You know what the mission is by now don't you?"

"It's hard to see why killing one kid that didn't even graduate needs a jounin to do it, even if three genin couldn't get the job done."

"Tch, well you need to keep your nose to the ground in the martial arts underworld more. The reason they've got you doing it is so that you can get it done without getting Ryouzanpaku on your case."

The theory on the failure of Kiba, Shino, Ino, and Neji was due to too much interference from elsewhere. While it was perceived that Naruto was the one that killed Shino and Neji, it was reported that the male and female disciples in the Ryouzanpaku camp were the ones that dealt the defeats to Kiba and Ino and were openly and vocally noted of being friends with Konoha's wayward ninja.

That was something a little too stiff to send the way of genin. Even chunin.

"Those people huh?" Kakashi idly wondered, nose buried into his book as he weaved through the human traffic on the sidewalk, "Well at least I won't die if I'm caught. I'll just feel like I did." A little joke was always nice, "You tangled with them recently didn't you? Any advice?"

"Yeah, don't attack the kid until you have a bonafide clear shot at him." Asuma said, "If it's a scenario anything like my little impromptu try on him, don't take it. Make sure you know what's up before you take your chance, because if they find out you tried something you won't get a second chance as easily."

"Relax Asuma." Kakashi assured him just before they parted ways to adhere to their own business, "If anyone should be set up to do something like this, I'm the only one with the right to take care of my handler's son."

XxX

(Ryouzanpaku Dojo – Hot Spring)

A successful mission to retrieve one of her father's swords completed, Shigure decided to take a break after returning before she would destroy it and after the day she'd had there was no better place to relax for a bit than in the on-property hot spring, even late at night.

She'd shooed Naruto on home after they'd gotten back to the train station in town and told him that she'd be seeing him tomorrow. Apparently now that he'd learned his mother's Spiral Cycle stance to satisfaction, training tomorrow was going to be 'fun'. Whether it was going to be fun for him or fun for her she didn't specify, and that in of itself sent a shiver down his spine.

Either way, when getting home she had been quick to store away the broadsword for later demolition and went to take a bath. Miu, who was still awake, decided to join her before going to bed.

"So, to be absolutely positive Shigure-san…" Miu started to say as she sat naked at the edge of the hot spring, "…Naruto-kun's still alive right? He didn't die out there and you're hiding it until he doesn't show up for a few days or anything like that? He's alive?"

"Yes." Shigure answered, submerged up to her chest in the water, "…Why would you think he was dead?"

"No reason! Just asking because he didn't come back with you!" Miu hurriedly declared before tapping a finger off of her chin in thought, "Well if he isn't dead, did he get 'Apachai'ed' again?"

"No, he just went home." Shigure assured her, sinking down to her neck in the water out of discomfiture, "Why do you think he'd get hurt or killed just… because he's with me?"

Honestly, Miu was sure that out of herself, Kenichi, and Naruto, any one of them going with any of the masters had a better than average chance of something bad happening to one of them. Fortunately here she had past evidence to use, "The first thing you made him do when you trained him was make him run around in rush-hour freeway traffic."

"…So?" She needed to see what she had to work with didn't she? That was as good a way as any.

Well eventually Miu conceded that it didn't really matter. If anything was amiss, everyone would know by tomorrow morning and if everything was fine it wouldn't be an issue anyway.

"Tee-hee."

What the hell? Did they just hear that?

Shigure couldn't sense anything, but she knew that she'd heard something. Living there with a pervert like Ma Kensei, she knew how this whole song and dance was supposed to go. Luckily she always kept a sharp weapon well within reach even when sans clothing.

As subtly as she could she reached out of the spring and felt her fingertips touch the hilt of her sword, "No..." In a sudden move she rushed out of the water in the direction where she heard the pleased little laugh come from, "…Peeking!"

"Woop-woop-woop!" A silver-haired blur cried out, dodging a slash that cleared every bit of foliage in that general direction higher than five feet off of the ground. In the midst of he figure's dodging he honed in on an alarmed Miu who had stood up after Shigure had initiated her attack.

It was just too good of a target for him to ignore. How could he possibly resist?

"Wah!" Miu cried out, feeling a pair of hands grab her breasts. But before she could even begin to think of lashing out with a retaliatory punch there was nothing for her to take aim at, "What in the world?"

"No touching!" Shigure said, able to take advantage of the intruder's temporary interest in Miu to close the distance on him and attack with a swift and accurate downward slash, "Kousaka Slash!"

Everything came to an end as Shigure brought her long sword down, seemingly catching the enemy down the face, straight down the middle as he reared his head back out of the path of the swing.

After several seconds of no movement, Jiraiya pulled his head back forward to reveal that Shigure had cut through his turtle-shell glasses, sending them falling off of his face, "…Those cost 50,000 yen." His eyes panned over her body and a grin crossed his face, "I'll forgive you though. The show was worth every bit of it."

"W-Who are you even supposed to be?" Miu asked, submerging herself back underwater to preserve what crumbs were left of her dignity, "How did you even get this far into the property?"

"Sneaking into even heavily guarded military compounds is mere child's play for the greatest ninja in all of the underworld; the almighty Jiraiya." Jiraiya boasted before feeling the tip of Shigure's sword push against his chest. With a roll of his eyes he put his finger on the blade of the sword and moved it away, "Alright, can you put that thing away already before someone gets hurt? Seriously, I've snuck in here four times before already. I let you find me this time."

"Konoha didn't want him so… leave him alone." Shigure declared resolutely, "I won't let you kill him."

"I'm not going to. I'm actually trying to whip him and his little motley crew into halfway decent ninjas." Jiraiya defended, "I just wanted to finally meet the woman that my brat of an apprentice is willing to stick his neck out for." Jiraiya said, staring completely unfettered at the pair of women in the hot spring, "I'm assuming that it's the dark cutie right here since she's the only one that could react to me. That and she was the one who was good enough to try and take my head off twice just now."

Shigure held her sword up at Jiraiya, not minding her own nudity in that instance while Miu scrambled to wrap a towel around herself, "…And?"

Jiraiya took a moment to examine her up and down. Hey, if she was offering him the free view it was only polite as a guest to take her up on the offer to look, "I have to say… I can't really blame the kid. He's got good taste."

Naruto was more like him than Jiraiya would ever get him to admit even under threat of torture, whether he knew it or not. The blonde girl his age was fine and would only increasingly be so over time. The woman with the sword was impeccable, and she couldn't have been any more than five or six years Naruto's senior.

Shigure's face didn't react to anything that he'd said. She still didn't trust the man, "What do you want?"

"To thank you actually." That was a surprising admission coming from one such as him, "Weapons were never really my strong suit and I wouldn't really have taught him anything other than stupid tricks with small arms. Those would have had a better chance of getting him killed than actually helping him grow."

Hearing Jiraiya thank her actually disarmed Shigure's attitude toward him, "You train him?"

"I teach him ninja techniques where you teach him how to own all with weapons." Jiraiya told her before getting gravely serious, "Don't ever go easy on him. That's my only request. You break him every single time you train with him. I don't want you to think that it was a good day if you can't doubt if he can walk home when he goes to leave. If you think you're going too hard, you're not going hard enough."

"That's a little much isn't it?" Miu asked with a dry look on her face.

Jiraiya just gave her a look as if to say, 'Aw, that's so adorable that you think I care about your opinion girlie,' before he addressed her, "Look, in addition to the whole Konoha thing, I'm fully aware of the fact that because he's associated with you people he's a target for Yami now, and they're going to send their brats after him, you, and the weak-knee kid because you three are Ryouzanpaku. I don't fight kids, alright? So I'm gonna torture that little fucker to the point where nothing anyone does to him in a real fight will be any more dangerous than what I do to him in practice."

"Again, a little much."

"Well tough. Because that's the only way I'm letting him out to play with killers." Jiraiya said before looking around suspiciously, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting the hell out of here before Fuurinji realizes I'm here, because that old bastard ALWAYS knows, and I ain't dealing with him tonight."

Shigure blinked before pointing over in Miu's direction. She wanted to get one over on Jiraiya somehow if at all possible, "…Miu is the Elder's granddaughter." Jiraiya paled and slowly looked between the two women before taking off faster than Miu's eyes could keep up with, "There. He won't peek on you… again."

If only she knew. He just didn't want to deal with Hayato. That didn't mean it would necessarily stop him from trying again at some point later. He was drawn to looking at girls in bathhouses, and even the Invincible Superman wouldn't keep him from getting in if he really wanted to.

Aside from that, Jiraiya peeking on them in the future was the least of their concerns. He'd been carrying a notebook that they'd missed out on after Shigure had attacked him.

That would be something to think on later, after Ma Kensei walked around the dojo with his nose in a brand new book with an orange cover, constantly looking at Miu and Shigure without actually trying to sneak a panty shot of them. They would wonder why, and without getting to the to-be published book they would never know.

* * *

**Alright, first of all a shout-out to my main-main man, username Shisora (because using his real name is not standard procedure for the internet), who seriously hooked me up with an absolutely obscene amount of beef jerky. And by 'obscene amount' I need to make sure that I'm not understating this at all.**

**I got one box mailed to me Saturday morning with 32 fucking bags of brand name goddamn beef jerky in it. And then after I recovered from my seizure upon finding it and stood back up, I messaged him to thank him, and he told me that another box was supposed to be coming, which arrived on Tuesday.**

**I woke up a few minutes later at that point, and instead of finding it to be a beef jerky related fever dream I found that I'd simply blacked out after reading his very informative email. **

**In case you haven't noticed, I have several crippling Achilles' Heel traits that can stop me in a heartbeat; amongst other things they include a surgically repaired knee that craps out on me in cold weather, an irrational fear of the literal unseen (not ghosts or anything, just fear of getting caught off-guard), and the one that is currently on display in my rant which would be that I am a sucker for beef jerky.**

**So yeah, in closing… Shisora brother, you're badass, and I can't say enough on the tail end of a fanfic chapter to convey my gratitude, because I needed a win lately like nobody's business and the last thing I expected was the thing I do for absolutely no profitable benefit whatsoever resulting in me actually getting something. **

**Anyway, this chapter was meant to establish something on Naruto and Shigure's relationship, that he sees her as more than just a teacher and more closer to something like some sort of family. Hopefully I conveyed that well. I didn't want to go overboard, but maybe I didn't make it stick hard enough. I don't know.**

**Now, other than that I've got nothing really to say. I hope you enjoyed. **

**Kenchi out.**


	22. Pile It On

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I just took my fist out of the wall after writing that, and now I need to go get the drywall.

**Chapter 22: Pile It On**

* * *

"That's so badass." Naruto commented, staring at the body restraint on Takeda that the boxer wore underneath his usual uniform top. They'd met up after the last school bell rang and since Naruto had no club activity for the time being so he headed out from school with his pugilistic buddy and listened to his ongoing training stories, "How do you take that thing off?"

"I don't." Takeda replied, buttoning his shirt back up, "Ever. Shiba-sensei is the only one that can get this thing off. But all he ever does is just put more resistance on it when I start moving too well in it." Tears almost sprang to the 3rd year student's eyes at the thought, "He's killing me! But I can't give it up! I won't! I've finally found a master willing to train me."

James Shiba; a master he met in the middle of underground fighting matches that he'd gone to at Shikamaru's behest. After asking him in between matches if he would train him and being denied, a deal was stricken that if Takeda could make him an 'x' amount of money by his betting on him he would train him.

Takeda fought and won all night long, and when he just about reached his goal and the odds changed James Shiba had one request of him.

Take a dive.

The man wanted to make a killing on the gambling, and having control of that kind of outcome was astounding.

Takeda's boxer fighting spirit almost shined through and he would have rather won the fight to prove his skill to impress his would-be teacher… had Shikamaru not been too smart to let Takeda's idiocy ruin all of their collective work. He tied some of his wire to Takeda's feet before the final match to make sure that he threw the fight and lost. He had to hightail it out of there on home afterward to avoid receiving the fallout from his friend, but it served its purpose. Takeda got his master.

He was still kind of pissed though.

"Tell Shikamaru I'd like to thank him if he ever decides to show up around me again." Takeda said with a way too friendly to be safe tone, "Really. As thanks I'd like to show him how much my boxing has improved because of him."

If that meant he wanted to spar or something, he'd probably have a rougher time with Shikamaru now than he'd think. For God's sake, Shikamaru was not only learning new moves, he was actually getting some serious muscle definition from all of the physical training Jiraiya was forcing him to do.

"So what are you going to do this weekend Naruto-kun?"

Naruto flinched at the remark on his weekend plans and looked down at his hands, "I've got to go see someone out of town." He said, "I've been a coward about something and I've waited for long enough to own up to it. Whatever happens, I deserve it."

He wasn't going to go alone, but he was still going to do the most important part by himself. It was what he owed at the very least. He dug himself that grave two times over and now he had to lie in them both.

Takeda could see the intent in Naruto's words echoed all across his face and gave the younger teenager a pat on the shoulder in support, "You know I've always got your back. Everyone in the Shade Alliance does. Go and handle your business."

Naruto nodded and smiled a bit before deciding to shorten the time it would take to get to his destination by taking to the rooftops. He wasn't going to enjoy facing down what he did, but for the life of him he wasn't going to sidestep it any longer.

XxX

(Train Platform)

Having already cleared his trip with Jiraiya and Shigure, Naruto assured them both that it would only take a day at most and that it was something that he had to do if he was going to keep on moving forward. Mental baggage had a habit of piling up and weighing you down if you didn't address it, even if doing so was like pulling teeth.

"Should be back later tonight…" Naruto said to himself, looking at his round-trip ticket, "Alright, they probably know I'm going to do something but by the time I get on the train-."

"Naruto-kun! Fancy seein' you here!"

His timing was off. Either that, or someone was really getting faster to disrupt his count on how long it would take for him to get to the train station from the school. He thought he at least had five more minutes before someone caught up to him, and he wouldn't have counted on that someone being Takeda, "I thought you had… training." Naruto trailed off upon seeing who the boxer had with him.

Grinning in his usual manner despite how tired he appeared, Takeda jogged in place while dragging a land sled behind him. On the sled was a large muscular man with parted hair and a long pointed western-style mustache. He wore a vest with the sleeves ripped off, dark pants with boots, an eyepatch over his right eye, and a heavy brace around his right leg.

Takeda's master he presumed: James Shiba.

He definitely looked scary enough, so he had that apparent prerequisite for being a master down.

"Well I was just handling roadwork, and we ran into you over here!" Takeda said with a laugh, only to cringe when he heard the crack of a whip from behind him. It reminded Naruto of how Akisame made Kenichi run almost every day, "Aha… w-what's the matter sensei?"

"Feh." James said after recognizing he had his disciple's attention, "So this is why you took a route we never use, and why you outpaced yourself past normal. To catch this kid before the four o'clock train left." He looked Naruto over before deciding to subtly blast him with the presence of his ki. His eyes went wide for a second before he gritted his teeth and adjusted to it, 'Hmm, not bad.'

As uncomfortable as it was and as much as Naruto wanted to squirm in place, he'd been hit with enough masters' presences to know how to differentiate it from killing intent, which was meant by its nature to overwhelm, and deal with it accordingly, "Well ah… I guess I should get going before the train leaves."

"Where are you going?" James asked gruffly, getting Naruto to stop in his tracks for long enough to allow the man to analyze what was going on with the boy, 'He's expecting the worst of something.'

"Just going to see somebody. I told Takeda a little bit already."

"Then you won't mind if he comes with you."

"Uh… maybe?"

This was news and a surprise to Takeda, "Sensei?"

"I smell danger around this kid." James said with a wicked grin that unnerved both young men, "You've been training with me for a month now. Time to go put your life on the line for a bit, and that's an order."

Naruto didn't really appreciate how the guy just figured that bad things were going to happen around him, but for the life of him he just didn't have the facts to dispute James Shiba's assumption.

"Unless you'd rather spend the rest of the day training with me like normal." James said, offering the choice to Takeda, "We're behind on roadwork since we had to stop for this little chat so we'll have to double-time it, and then I've got this new exercise I want you to try. I've never tested it before so it might have a chance to cripple-."

"-Let's go Naruto!" Takeda couldn't shove Naruto onto the train fast enough for his tastes. He was grateful that he was getting training, but that didn't make it any less painful or terrifying for him to endure.

As they almost wound up causing a scene due to Takeda's lack of possession of a ticket, James laughed to himself. Maybe he should have thought of taking a pupil sooner? He got a good share of kicks out of dealing with the one he currently had.

XxX

(Shade Alliance HQ)

"You sure?"

"Uh-huh." Tenten replied, gesturing with her hand, "Don't worry about it. Everything's a weapon. Just keep time." After saying that, Tenten reached into her usual supply of ranged weaponry and pulled out a handful of marbles, "Wha-? Eh, alright."

Jiraiya had been making her use basically anything that she could pick up and throw with any sort of force behind it as a part of her training in case she was ever in a situation where she didn't have her tools of choice on her person. That obviously manifested here in him packing her weapons trying to get her to adjust to doing more than throwing shuriken.

She was surprised he managed to get that on her since she'd checked before leaving the house that morning and she had shuriken in there. He did that without her notice and he didn't even grab her butt or anything else. Apparently he did have self-control.

Still, marbles? She knew the old goat was messing with her somehow, but complaining never got her anything other than constant insults and relentless hazing from the trainer of the ninja trio. That much was clear by now. Naruto had figured it out first; the best way to stick it to Jiraiya was to do whatever he said and then flip him off afterwards because then he couldn't say or do anything in return.

"Oh well… I always used to be good at this game anyway." Tenten said, choosing to fire the marbles with her thumb at a high rate, "Huh… not bad." She kept practicing with them on the human-sized dummies set up in her path, always landing smack on the forehead of the targets, "The small ones are better for fighting than the big ones. Alright Kisara-chan, come on. You know the game."

Across the large, open room Kisara stood smirking to herself at the thought of redoing the old game that the Valkyries used to play against Tenten. Get close enough to touch Tenten without getting pulverized or cut up by whatever she was throwing at you. Most of them had never been good at that game except for Kisara and Freya. Kisara dodged most of it while Freya could block almost everything with her staff.

"As long as the ref is ready." Kisara said, looking over at Shiratori who nodded to her mistress that everything was set. She cut her eyes more than a few times over to Kenichi who was also in the room, but she had been given a task to assist and she needed to do so.

Gawking at Kenichi and all of his wonderful-ness could wait until after. At least he didn't have Miu hanging all around him today.

"And… go."

While the two girls scared most of the nameless crowd of the Shade Alliance by turning a transformed game of red light/green light into a violent exercise, someone that had found Tenten's accurate attacks to be commonplace by now was being questioned for other reasons.

"So." Ukita asked, finding Shikamaru somehow sleeping while standing up against a wall. He wasn't alone as Kenichi was curious as well, and both noticed that Shikamaru's arms seemed more defined in the short sleeves of his spring school uniform, "You and Tenten know what's been up with Naruto all week?"

"Yep."

"-But you're not telling anyone?" Kenichi continued where the large Judoka had left off.

"Nope."

"…Why?"

Shikamaru cracked open an eye and sighed, "Because it's Naruto's business, and no I don't mean 'business' like the whole ninja thing. I mean it like; don't ask me again because it's not even my business."

Tenten momentarily paused in her practice to keep up her aim up to add her own point, "Seriously, I know you think you want to know, but you really don't." Shiratori's call that the game was now active once again brought her attention back to Kisara who was able to avoid her shots, "Damn. Everybody's got their own mess of problems. Sometimes you can't punch 'em all out."

"Or kick 'em." Kisara quipped getting close enough to Tenten to launch a kick that she avoided, getting her distance again to continue her onslaught on the nimble Taekwondo user, "Tch." Someone was better at dealing with close-range fighting than she used to be, at least until she could get her distance again.

"So what kind of problem does Naruto have that he doesn't want any of us to be around for?" Kenichi asked.

Shikamaru smirked before remembering that it wasn't really supposed to be something worth smiling about, "Naruto hates doing two things more than almost anything else in the world. One of them is apologizing."

"I've seen Naruto apologize." Kenichi pointed out, "He apologized to Shigure-sensei in front of all of us before."

"Other than then, when have you ever seen him apologize to anyone for anything? Ever. Even when you knew he knew he was wrong."

That was a damn good question. Kenichi had known Naruto since middle school, and he'd never seen him apologize to anyone; adults, older kids, it didn't matter. But then that led to another question, who did Naruto have to apologize to and what did he have to apologize for?

That seemed to be the thing that neither of Naruto's housemates were willing to answer, even if they were pressed by multiple people to do so.

XxX

(With Naruto – Tokyo, Japan)

As Naruto and Takeda stepped off of the train the people around them gave them a wide berth as they continued an argument that they'd started on the train. The argument of course being, who had it harder in training?

"I'd rather get punched than stabbed!" Naruto argued, shoving Takeda slightly as the intensity of the dispute increased, "As someone that's personally felt both, I would much rather get punched by a trained boxer than stabbed by someone on the same level that knows what they're doing with a blade!"

"Whatever! At least Shigure-san is hot! I think I could endure getting cut up on a daily basis if I got to look at that whenever I did!"

"That woman's terrified me since I was twelve! I'm surprised I don't have a goddamn phobia at this point! Girls with weapons are scary!"

"Yeah, scary-awesome!"

"Not really, since they don't seem to get that aiming for the junk isn't cool, even if they're joking! And she's not my only teacher!"

"Oh, so you get a change of pace now? You get some variety while I've got to get beaten up by Shiba-sensei every single day!"

"No! I have to deal with both every day, just as long as you've got to train with him for each! I do twice your work! If I weren't so f'n unbreakable-!"

"Unbreakable? I'll break you right now!"

"Just because you've got two arms now doesn't mean I won't whip your ass again!"

At this point the two were butting heads on the stairwell down to the street, seemingly just about willing to come to blows with one another to fight over their completely useless point.

WHACK!

At least until a staff collided off of the top of Naruto's head, abruptly bringing their faceoff to an end.

"I've been waiting for my complementary meal all ride long! And where's my tea!?"

As Naruto writhed on the stairs, holding the crown of his head and cursing senile old men, Takeda just stared at the short, bald old man that had cracked Naruto's skull like a coconut, "Uh… what?"

"Oh God!" Naruto shouted from the ground, "He bruised the bone! I fucking hate this old man so much!" Cue staff strike to his very exposed posterior that forced Naruto to hop up to his feet, "OW! Hit Takeda!"

"Don't put that evil on me." Takeda said, backing away with a casual grin, "Didn't you say you were 'unbreakable' or something?"

"In spirit, not body!" Naruto rebutted, "At least not yet! And why is he even here?"

After a little while, the granddaughter of the wayward old man made her way down the train station stairs to find her relative with two people that she knew, "Oh, Uzumaki and Takeda the Puncher. Grandfather, why did you wander off like that so quickly?"

Upon hearing Freya's voice, Naruto completely shrugged off the impact from the staff shots and sent a big smile her way. The last time he'd seen her she hadn't exactly been in prime condition, but she looked aptly healed up to him then, "Hey Kaname!" WHACK! "Owww! I'm getting brain damage!"

"I'm still waitin' on my tea boy!"

Naruto muttered in rudimentary Russian before yelling at Danki, "I'm not a food delivery boy, and I don't work on the trains!"

This would mark the third time meeting Danki where this happened. The first time they'd met the old man thought he was a thief and then a delivery boy, the second time he thought he was a delivery boy when he brought an injured Freya to him, and this time he figured that he was the one that served refreshments and whatnot on the train. And every time he'd try to hit Naruto for not doing his job.

It was weird. The man ran the spectrum from being either senile or a wise and intelligent martial arts master willing and able to aim for the jugular with his analytical remarks on a person. One wouldn't be so bad without the other, but with both it was ultra-annoying… and painful.

Seriously, if the old man hit him just a tad harder, Naruto figured he'd know what colors tasted like by now.

"Grandfather, Uzumaki's job isn't to get you food." Freya told her senior relative before addressing Naruto and Takeda suspiciously, "Come to think of it, I don't know why he's here in Tokyo at all."

"Ninja stuff." Takeda said with a shrug of his shoulders. That was always a good enough explanation for him when it came to anything Naruto had to do, "That's a pretty blanket term that should probably cover it."

Looking at the position of the sun in the sky outside, Naruto blanched before trying to explain what he could about his situation, "Uh, I've got somewhere to be, and I need to be there before the sun goes down."

The reason being so that he didn't pussy out and use the nighttime as an excuse for not going.

At that moment, Danki spoke up, shedding the veil of senility enough to be taken seriously, "I see." The entire time Freya and Takeda had been openly wondering why Naruto had come to Tokyo he'd been scrutinizing the boy's reaction to their curiosity, "Kaname, go with the delivery boy."

"But grandfather-!"

"No arguing with your master!"

CRACK!

"Owwwww…" Freya whined, rubbing her head after taking a staff shot, similar to Naruto's.

For some reason that put the blond at ease. Good. At least it wasn't just him that got those. The way she whined after getting hit was kind of cute too. That didn't seem like the kind of thing she'd ever let herself be caught doing.

Takeda just watched the little old man shuffle off, grateful that he hadn't gotten cracked for anything he said or did. Were all masters sadistic to some degree? He hadn't heard of one currently training anyone that wasn't.

Freya finished nursing the new bump on the top of her head and watched her grandfather depart, wondering if she should risk going after him anyway. Well, he'd travelled around for years before returning to his dojo for a spell, so more than likely he didn't need her at all.

"Why would grandfather ask me to go with Uzumaki though, even if he didn't want me to follow him from home to begin with?" She looked over at Takeda who just shrugged. He wondered the same thing himself before both of them looked around for the ninja in question, "…Where did he go?"

After looking around for a moment, both spotted Naruto crouching at the top of a nearby building. They heard him curse under his breath that they'd found him before he could begin getting away, "Sorry guys! This one's kind of personal! Later!"

"Damn it!" Takeda shouted before trying to follow along on the ground, Freya joining him, "How did he do that without us finding him out?"

The part of Freya that despised being outdone decided that the only way to assuage her ego was to keep up with Naruto and determine just where he was trying to get off to.

It wasn't because she would have rather had his company than not while they were all in Tokyo. Not at all.

XxX

(With Kenichi – That Evening – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

'No Miu-san around, and not even Naruto-san to hang out with either.' Kenichi thought to himself as he returned to his home and his place of training, opening and closing the massive gates that at one time he couldn't budge with all of his might, 'The Shade Alliance is full of good friends, but something just seems off today.'

Come to think of it, Takeda hadn't been there either. He was probably training with his new master, and good for him for getting one. He deserved it, often putting in the work all on his own. Now he could definitely improve by leaps and bounds.

Speaking of improving, he'd been given the day off and had spent it doing nothing strenuous, but for some reason Kenichi felt a sense of dread when he returned.

Something told him to go straight for the main house where meals were eaten and where the masters usually gathered when they were just hanging around. Something about how tranquil things seemed wore on his sense of paranoia. Usually when all was calm, something bad had happened or was just about to happen.

Either way it didn't bode well for him somehow.

Upon entering the building he found all of the masters and Miu sitting around the main room, all eyes turning to him when he walked in. Okay, that wasn't a good start.

The Elder simply locked eyes with him before holding up a thick golden coin with an emblem on it, "We need to talk Ken-chan. You've been challenged."

XxX

(With Naruto – Hyuuga Clan Grounds – Garden Area)

The hallmark of an old-time mansion was the property that it covered. For the mansion of the Hyuuga Clan, it had extensive ground available to it due to how it used to be an actual ninja stronghold before the era of old came to an end and the great merge of clans into Konohagakure took place. From there it simply blended into the affluent area of Tokyo as another rich family's property.

The garden used to be something of a practical obstacle course, with multiple levels, random tall walls, several fountains, hedges, and all sorts of domestic hindrances that one would find lain out on a noble's property.

To keep with the old ways to some degree, even when it merely became a place that one spent time in while on the property it still had no lights installed to illuminate it during the nighttime leaving it pitch dark when the sun went down.

This was what made it one of Hinata's favorite places to roam after she had lost her eyesight and was sent home. There it didn't matter if she could see or not. If anyone wanted to find her there at night they were closer to being on her level playing field. She oftentimes kept her eyes closed simply for the novelty of it.

As she often did, she took a seat by one of the fountains in the garden and quietly read to herself. It was a tranquil place to do her schoolwork and practice what she knew of her martial art in private. Seeing as how she didn't need light to do either of these things, it wasn't ever a problem.

Without warning she shut the book she had been studying and opened her eyes before speaking aloud, "I don't know why you're here, but you know not where you tread. I would suggest that you leave before someone less forgiving than myself discovers you." She said in her delicate voice.

The figure she spoke to didn't say a word at first, only choosing to walk closer to her. Losing her eyesight left Hinata perceptive to many other things, and she could feel that the presence with her meant her no harm. But they were a ninja. There were no footsteps.

"After all of the trouble it took trying to find a way in here..." Hinata's breath hitched in her throat upon hearing a voice that was so close to lining up with the last person she'd ever saw, "…A way that wouldn't have gotten me killed… heh, I definitely can't leave without doing what I came to do. I reckon I only have about five or ten minutes before someone figures out that I got in here, and then I need to be gone or I'm dead, so I want to say what I've got to say."

"N-Naruto-kun?"

"I really wish you wouldn't call me that after everything I did. Hearing you say that just… eh, nevermind. I deserve feeling like crap."

Hinata reached out a hand in Naruto's direction and touched his face. He didn't move, simply allowing her to do so and expecting her to slap him once she found where to aim. This did not occur though.

From the way she could feel him frown she could tell that he wanted her to hit him, to be angry with him. He felt no malice or tension in her gentle touch.

"I just keep on taking stuff from you don't I?" Naruto asked, "Your sight and now your cousin. I'm so sorry. Nothing I say is gonna fix anything, but I at least want to be a man about it and say it to your face. I'm sorry."

"I don't b-blame you for either of those things." Hinata said, rubbing his cheek and smiling sadly. Her hand drifted down to his neck where she felt she could touch at his vocal cords, "I hurt you too."

"I blinded you. God, it makes me sick just thinking about it. You didn't deserve that." Naruto reasoned, "You didn't deserve to get your career ended. You didn't deserve to get your ass sent home forever. It was… ugh."

"You freed me. While I do wish it was under better circumstances, I would have been more miserable as a ninja having to fight and do unsavory things than… now. I didn't want to be one."

"I killed Neji. I fought him and it didn't stop, and I… I-."

"We know what we do Naruto-kun. We can pick the game but we cannot change the rules."

Hearing Hinata quote what Neji said almost word for word got Naruto's heart to almost stop. Neji said that she would understand. This was what a ninja family was like?

"That's how it ends for a n-ninja." Hinata continued in Naruto's silence, "None of us die of old age or naturally. Someone takes our lives from us in the end. Always. All we can ever ask for is that when we go, we go knowing that we fought for what we believed in. H-How could I be angry at you for valuing your own life enough to f-fight back against a man trying to take it? Any other living creature on Earth would do the exact same thing."

But most other living creatures on Earth would also feel a need to enact retribution. This girl did not.

Damn it, she made apologizing so much harder. For some reason it was easier to say you were sorry for something when the person you were apologizing to felt hostility. Knowing that you hurt someone that never wanted to harm you in the slightest just made you feel all that much worse.

"You don't have a vengeful bone in your body do you?" Naruto said quietly, "I would have been ready for this if you'd yelled at me, hit me, sicced the rest of your family on me. Something. You're killing me here Hinata."

"I begged him you know." Hinata told Naruto, "When I found him in your town I begged Neji-niisan to let everything go, to come home with me. I knew that everything was going to end badly, and when I realized what he did and when he didn't come back on the first train the next morning I knew what had happened."

Even blind, she had never felt so helpless as knowing that despite her intentions and her best efforts to steer the inevitable away from happening, everything still came to a head. She supposed it was naïve optimism that made her believe that there would ever be an outcome any more desirable than the one that she wound up getting.

"Did he die well?" The pale-eyed beauty eventually asked.

"…Neji should have won that fight. He's the strongest person I've ever fought for real. He was a better ninja than me." Naruto told her, "I pulled out all of the stops. I threw everything I had at him just to keep up, and I still had to fake my own death just to get an opening. So yes."

"Show me. I want to feel the battle you had for myself."

Hinata stood up, grabbing Naruto's hand and prompting him to rise along with her. From there she stood in front of her in a stance perfectly mirroring Neji's, showing that she was knowledgeable in the Baguazhang style that Neji used to combat him.

And so in the dark, Naruto walked Hinata through every aspect of the battle with Neji, showing her the moves that each of them made and the moves that they made to counter one another. She was very talented. No move Neji made in the fight seemed to go over her head, every motion she made was smooth and deliberate. At no time did any of his verbal directions of Neji's actions confuse her, and her footwork was immaculate. Naruto felt as if he were in the midst of a dance of death with her.

All culminating with Naruto's hand resting on her side, where he'd hit Neji with the Rasengan that brought everything to an end. When they had finished, Naruto took the index and middle fingers of her right hand and linked them with her own, eliciting a small gasp from her.

"…I don't know what you think about it, but back then we never did this after the yamikeigo." Naruto said with a shrug, "I know the whole 'seal of reconciliation' is just stupid kid shit that they made us learn so that we didn't kill each other, but still-."

Hinata bravely placed her hands on Naruto's face and brought him up from the crouch of his finishing strike to come face-to-face with him. Not hesitating in the slightest she pulled him the rest of the way in and pressed her lips to his.

As surprised as he was, Naruto had come there prepared to endure a harsh rebuking from the girl, and maybe a manhunt from her and the rest of her clan. A kiss was the absolute last thing he'd expected to receive as a result of his visit. Still, he had determined that he would allow her whatever liberty with his person that she wished as long as he was certain it wouldn't kill him.

This was definitely not killing him, and he found himself returning it. Neither of them knew what they were doing and didn't go much further than the prolonged meeting of their lips as it was the first kiss for both, but it was an experience they were willing to share.

Both pulled away at once and Naruto could only imagine what his face looked like. How the hell was he supposed to react to what had just happened? He wasn't even really sure what had just happened. All he knew was that he could mark one thing off of his life experience to-do list. Now all that was left until he amended it was to learn how to play guitar and become a Kage-level ninja.

Hinata touched at her own face and felt the heat rising underneath her skin. Nobody would ever know or could possibly comprehend just how much it took for her to do what she'd done to someone she'd liked since they were six, someone she'd never gotten over. She figured that there was nothing left to lose and decided that nothing worse could possibly happen, so she stole herself a kiss.

The fact that she didn't have to look Naruto in the eye or see the look on his face was the only thing that kept her from getting lightheaded enough to faint, "So…"

"Yeah…" Naruto replied, going silent for a spell in order to analyze his situation. She wasn't wearing anything on her lips but that tasted sweet, "Huh. Ah… so now what?"

"I… don't know. That was s-spur of the moment I'm afraid. I'm sorry." She'd wanted to do that for _ages_. When life kept giving you body blows eventually you had to clinch. This was how she did so.

Oh, _her_ apologizing to _him_? For _that_? Hell no, that just would not do.

"No! Don't be sorry, it was definitely-. Well I didn't see that coming at all." That was an understatement. Goodness was she gorgeous though, "But it totally wasn't bad. It was great, -ttebayo."

Oh, she couldn't swoon here. If she did he'd die because someone would notice from afar and the game would be over. But she wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer. She had to send him away now… like in thirty seconds. She figured that was as long as she could last before her resolve gave out and she lost it.

Then she could faint in the garden from embarrassment and dream her blissful dreams.

Now _that_ was closure.

XxX

(Outside of the Hyuuga Clan Grounds)

With a soft thud, Naruto landed outside of the gated property right where he'd made his initial entry, 'Mission complete.' He thought to himself as he stared at his phone.

…He got a number.

He went to apologize for multiple things, not excluding squaring off with a childhood comrade's cousin in a deathmatch, to getting her number. After everything that had happened, she actually wanted to keep in contact with him. As he had determined before, he would allow her whatever liberty with his person that she wished as long as he was certain it wouldn't kill him, and she was certain that at some point it would help.

"_Friends should stay friends… shouldn't they Naruto-kun?"_

Being a ninja was seriously fucked up.

"Are you out of your mind?" Turning around, Naruto found Freya and Takeda in the same location as him, the former rather miffed at him for some reason, "I knew you went in there. That place was a fortress. What were you thinking?"

"Uh…" Naruto droned for several seconds trying to think of an answer that would make sense and wouldn't give away his actual reason for being there, "…It seemed like a good idea at the time?"

Oh God, interacting with Naruto for prolonged periods of time gave Freya a headache. It was probably better not to ask questions as to his motivations. It would certainly make hanging around him easier.

Not that she wanted to hang around him more. She never said that.

"Can we leave before we find ourselves questioned by the police?" Takeda asked, unknowingly saving Naruto from being grilled on what he'd been doing, "We don't exactly look like residents in this neighborhood." Which was a nice way to say that they all looked kind of like delinquents. Sort of true.

"Yes please." Naruto replied swiftly. Fuck the authorities, he didn't care about that at all. Just because Hinata was willing to bestow her benevolence upon him didn't mean that the rest of the Hyuuga Clan wouldn't try to flay him alive and make an Uzumaki Naruto trench coat on sight.

As they left, Takeda and Freya noticed that Naruto had something of a bounce in his step that he hadn't had before. Did he go in there and steal something from that mansion and get away with it or something? Ninjas were supposed to be capable of stealing weren't they?

Takeda didn't see why Shiba-sensei figured that going with Naruto would have been so dangerous. Yeah, maybe if he'd tried to sneak with Naruto into that guarded place that would have been different, but he basically just waited outside at the place he and Freya found to be the entry point.

Walking under the streetlights in Tokyo wasn't that much more dangerous than being in their town. Sure, if a local color gang decided to try their luck they wouldn't know just what kind of trouble they were stepping into, but kicking a little ass had never really been a problem for the ninja, the boxer, and the staff-user.

Eventually as they wandered their way back in the direction of the train station, Naruto's face took on a more thoughtful expression and he almost decided to ask a question that he figured would be better off left to himself. Freya noticed him open his mouth and stop just short of saying something though, "Something on your mind Uzumaki?"

"No, nothing." Naruto asked, "Just a stupid question. It doesn't really matter." It was more of an ego-driven query than anything else, and asking it would have been weird, thus he let it slide.

"Just ask." The dark-skinned young woman said to the younger man, "There are no such things as stupid questions."

"Then what kind of questions do stupid people ask I wonder?" Takeda wondered, swishing a long piece of grass around in his mouth curiously, "Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?"

He was promptly ignored despite the very good point he felt he'd made.

"Well…" Naruto said, cheeks heating up involuntarily at the thought of sating his previous interest. Eventually, as was his way, he simply threw it all to the wayside, "Okay, fine. Am I good-looking?"

With no cars on the road they were walking on, a pin could have dropped and been heard. What the hell kind of question was that? That was what Freya and Takeda wondered of their first-year underclassman.

Naruto basically started wondering this after being given a girl's first kiss and losing his own. He thought it was because he was awesome, and then remembered that she was blind. She certainly didn't carry herself like it, so it was easy to lose in the midst of his own swollen ego until he stopped and thought about it.

"What brought this along?" Takeda asked.

"Hey you told me to ask, so answer." Naruto said with a shrug before grimacing slightly and turning to give Freya his full attention, "Kaname. You answer. Not Takeda. That'd be pretty weird." The white-haired boxer nodded in agreement.

If she had to be put on the spot, she would have to say that Naruto was kind of charming in a scraggly kind of way. If he adjusted a few things he could actually be considered cute, and she was certain that he was the type that cleaned up well. Hell, take a comb to his head and ditch those ski goggles and who knew?

Then again he was also three years younger than her. So to say that she felt comfortable saying such a thing would have been a total stretch.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, she didn't have to answer. A niggling sense of peril crept at the back of Naruto's head for the longest time, and with him Jiraiya had taught him that if he felt a sense of paranoia and couldn't mentally explain it away it meant that there was someone after him.

Someone very good, because lowering one's ki to that extent was not a genin-level ability. If you had strong ki you had to train for quite some time in order to disguise it.

'I can't find where it's coming from.' The worst thing he could do was break out in a run. If the person was good enough to lower their ki, they were good enough to catch him before he got to the end of the block, and then there was the possibility that they would do something to Takeda and Freya, "…Guys."

Before Freya found the right words she needed to answer Naruto's question, she and Takeda were turned around, standing back-to-back-to-back in something of a triangle formation facing outward due to Naruto's Kawarimi-style manipulation, "Uzumaki, what are you?"

"Staff out, hands up."

Takeda didn't need to be told twice, a grin slipping on his face at the prospect of a fight, "So what's the matter Naruto-kun? What's coming?"

"Someone that wants to kill me." Naruto informed them, "Again. So you guys go ahead."

That wasn't in the cards for either of them. Freya hadn't gotten a good piece of the ninjas during their last attempt on their town. Takeda also wasn't keen on running. He had battled and lost the last time he had to face a ninja. He wanted some redemption.

It was at that moment that the presence stopped hiding itself and they all found what a mistake it was to stay.

The last time Naruto had been in the presence of a ninja better than a genin it had been Asuma, and while Asuma was far stronger than him he wasn't stronger than Sakaki. This man was right at that level, at the degree where he honestly couldn't tell who was stronger. But all that mattered was that he was stronger than all of them together.

"Maa… you know you're a ballsy kid." A laid-back voice said as a white-haired man in a facemask landed without a sound, seemingly from the sky itself, "Sneaking into the Hyuuga Clan mansion after what you did. But don't worry, I know you wouldn't want me to talk about either of those things too loudly. Not that it matters for you now anyway."

"Seriously you guys. Run." Naruto urged them, a bead of sweat travelling down his face from beneath the goggles on his forehead, "This isn't like last time." He knew it wasn't. If it wasn't for Jiraiya's tortu-, err training, he wouldn't have even had a prayer of feeling him coming, 'Why does he feel so much stronger than that guy that Sakaki fought?' "You… were following me?"

"Hmm, sort of. I saw your friends around the exterior and thought about shooing them off before they got themselves hurt, but then I thought to myself that life doesn't just throw coincidences around." Kakashi explained pleasantly, "I hid and watched them and lo and behold guess who I found? You. I'm here to kill-." He stopped talking for a moment in order to stop a blindingly fast move from Naruto, grabbing his wrist before he could strike him with the Rasengan attack in the kidney, "-You. You know you move a lot like someone I used to know."

He stopped Naruto cold. Casually. No give to his arm at all after he grabbed him, and his grip was vice-tight.

"Illusionary Left Rush!"

Takeda's left fist passed by Kakashi's head multiple times, never striking him once. With his free hand the adult ninja simply backhanded the boxer away in a flash, "You have a good friend, to attack someone that he knows he can't beat like that. By the way, my name is Kakashi-."

"Bastard!" Reaching into his bag, Naruto pulled a kunai and made to cut up at Kakashi's neck before deciding that he would block it, instead choosing to plunge it down into Kakashi's wrist only to have it snatched out of his hand, "Damn it!"

After pilfering Naruto's knife, Kakashi held it up to block a staff attack aimed at his head and neck from a side angle, "Good friend_s_ I should say. Plural."

Knowing that Kakashi was going to attack Freya next and try to knock her out of the battle, Naruto gritted his teeth and made a necessary sacrifice. Choosing to use the strength of Kakashi's grip against him, Naruto dislocated his own wrist much to the masked man's surprise. Using the loose grip, Naruto turned his entire body around swiftly and struck out with his elbow, "Boudou Nageyari (Riot Javelin)!"

'Impressive.' Kakashi thought to himself as he blocked with his knee, 'He was willing to do that to himself just to get my attention and protect his ally. Still, a mistake is a mistake.' He concluded mentally as he lifted his hand to strike at the base of Naruto's neck.

"Takeda now!" Freya shouted out, using her staff to keep Kakashi's elevated knee off of the ground, trying to tangle up any attempt he was willing to make to move out of the way, 'He's only got one arm since he has to hold on to Uzumaki. One free limb. He can either block or strike. He can't do both.'

Not quite as out of the fight as originally thought by Naruto, Takeda came roaring back from the open side of Kakashi, the side with the arm that still had a hold of Naruto, "Ultra Bolo Punch!" Making a full turn with his body, Takeda punched, rotating his arm from the back for an upward strike on the taller man.

They'd trapped him. Somehow they'd managed to get him in a catch-22. Either he killed Naruto and took the blow, let go of Naruto in order to block it with his closest arm, or risked using his other arm from an awkward position to block it.

Something about that would have made Kakashi chuckle, that three kids could do such a thing. It would have if it didn't piss him off a bit. They would have to be more creative if they wanted to come up with a technique trap that would make up for the advantage he had over all of them as a jounin.

Using the leg that Freya had trapped off of the ground after he'd blocked Naruto's sharp back elbow, Kakashi merely extended it forward to kick Naruto away forcefully, freeing up his arm on Takeda's side to smack the punch away with a parry. With his leg still held off of the ground, Kakashi used it to stomp down on Freya's staff, slamming her hands down on her end to smash off of the concrete.

Freya didn't let go of her staff, but as she tried to pick it back up she saw the tip of a tanto with a glowing white blade looking her right in the face.

A sharp-sounding exhale sent a small dart aimed right at Kakashi's neck. Forced to snatch the dart out of the air between two of his fingers he looked back at the blowdart-holding Naruto and scolded him, "I should have broken your back with that last kick." He didn't account for just how much stuff was in Naruto's bag, "Be good and I'll be with you in just a moment." If nothing else, the failed projectile allowed Freya to get away from the short blade.

As he spoke, Takeda went to attack him on his unarmed side, 'This is impossible! Fighting a master can't be this hard!' But it was. Every punch he threw was blocked by Kakashi before it even began to get going, as if Kakashi could read his moves before he made them.

Naruto bit back a cry of pain as he jerked his wrist back into place. Watching Kakashi dodge everything the way that he did gave way to Naruto remembering another top ninja skill possible to those that utilized Sei ki, "That's gotta be Sakki (Intuition of Attack)."

The thing that Neji had that Naruto hadn't learned. Asking Jiraiya after telling him about the fight he was let in on the special ability that those with true skill wound up learning. Any danger was sensed well in advance whether it was seen or not, fully allowing the user to adjust to the danger or stop it altogether if possible.

Not really like Kenichi's Seikuuken, because while it took a clear mind in the middle of battle you could move freely while doing it. It wasn't a guaranteed defense, but it allowed for more freedom of reaction, closer to an 'Inner Eye' type ability.

Damn it, this wasn't good at all. But leaving Takeda alone with him wasn't an option, thus Naruto only had a second to consider everything that had occurred thus far before he grabbed a smoke bomb and squeezed it in his hand just before he got close enough to Kakashi to be a threat.

Minding Takeda's fleet-footed boxing attack, focusing on it with one arm, Kakashi kept his eyes on the smokescreen only to leap away entirely when the end of a weighted chain flew from within it.

The eyes of Freya, Takeda, and Naruto all went wide upon seeing Kakashi jump upward, all with the exact same mindset, 'Got him!' Even if he had a tactical advantage from the air he could only really attack one of them in his descent.

That would have been applicable if their enemy hadn't been a jounin, 'Once again, not a bad plan, but-.' They made to surround him during his fall, but before he touched the ground he lashed out with a flurry of attacks that forcefully repelled them all, "None of you are good enough to take advantage of the situations you create. It's not your fault."

Takeda landed on the sidewalk in a heap and found his head spinning, 'I can't… I need some time.' What a beating. Kakashi had only really hit him twice, "Ugh. What a monster." Looking around he saw Freya in an opposite direction down on the ground similarly to him, and then there was Naruto who had been launched across the street into the side of a car that his body had dented the door of quite well, "Crap."

'I'd have rather hit the ground.' Naruto thought to himself, holding his left shoulder that had impacted off of the car first. One eye was swelling shut, but out of the corner of one, as he saw Kakashi coming his way he could see Takeda and Freya moving. Okay, that was good. Maybe the guy would just kill him and leave them alone. Ninjas didn't like collateral damage.

"I knew your father Naruto." Kakashi said, white tanto shining in the streetlight as he walked over to him, "He was my handler after I graduated, and he was a good ninja until… well, Konohagakure doesn't let us talk about that." He casually admitted, "I wish things could have been different. I would have lobbied to be your handler myself if you'd graduated."

In response, Naruto hurled a single kunai right at his forehead that was deflected with the tanto. Kakashi just gave him an infuriating smile behind his facemask and wagged his finger.

The street then exploded from some sort of physical impact smashing into it from the sky.

Naruto covered his face to avoid getting hurt from stray chunks of asphalt, but he heard a familiar voice from within the cloud of dust and debris that got his full attention, "Going straight for the throat now to send you in, aren't they Kakashi?"

Was that Jiraiya?

Yes it was.

…What the hell was he doing in Tokyo?

"Sorry I didn't step in sooner kid." As everything cleared away, it was evident that Jiraiya was locked in a struggle against Kakashi; pushing against his tanto with his armguard, "I knew who this was. I just wanted to see, if he was really serious about going for your head."

"You were watching this entire time?" Kakashi wondered, still smiling, "I'm embarrassed." That was close. If he wasn't so aware of the incoming danger he might have gotten smashed underneath the wooden sandals on the man's feet.

"Let's take this elsewhere, shall we?" Jiraiya asked civilly, "Naruto. Twenty-two blocks south, six blocks west. Use my name, get yourselves patched up. I'll get you to take you home right after I finish up with him."

Before Naruto could even question anything, both Jiraiya and Kakashi bolted into the sky with single jumps, disappearing elsewhere into the night. Well that certainly took the choice out of his hands didn't it?

Takeda and Freya weren't any better off than he was when it came to being shellshocked.

One second they were getting one-hit destroyed by the guy in the mask, the next there was some drifter-looking guy falling from the sky and taking care of business.

"Who was that guy?"

"Which one?"

"Either. Both."

XxX

(With Jiraiya)

Two blurs flew across the rooftops, clashing periodically in speedy engagements before breaking off as they continued to pursue one another.

Cordial conversation was also held.

What else could be expected between two fellow jounin of Konohagakure that had something in common?

The thing they had in common was that neither of them really should have been jounin.

"I figured you would have taken the promotion to Kage already." Jiraiya said to Kakashi, both trading attacks in midair and missing repeatedly before landing and continuing to run and hop roofs, "People were talking about you back years ago."

"I could say the same for you Jiraiya." Kakashi replied, "The Kage Council has been trying to entice you to accept for the last twenty years."

"Not for me. I like the outside world too much to coop myself up on that island with those kids and wet-blanket old fogies." Jiraiya liked the roving initiative that being a ninja allowed him. He could go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted, just as long as he took his share of missions every now and then.

"Same here." Though Kakashi wouldn't have put it in such blunt terms about the kids and the Kage ninjas, "I can do more out working and doing missions while I'm still well than if I just became a Kage."

"Right. So can we stop this little spar now?" Jiraiya asked dryly, "You're not putting forth that much more effort than you did to beat up those kids."

At that, both of them ceased the worthless fighting, finding that they'd fought their way to a more metropolitan area of Tokyo. Where they were they had no idea. They'd figure it out later. Jiraiya was rather pleased with Kakashi's growing strength. He wasn't just the brat Minato sent off to get his ass kicked on missions any longer. That was a long time ago.

They were technically on the same side, but that gave way to a question from Kakashi.

"Why are you training Naruto?" The even-tempered masked man asked, "You know that's not allowed. He's not in the system."

"Oh what are they going to do?" Jiraiya asked with a grin, "Send that guy that can stop me?"

"Jiraiya…"

"Look, if they want to keep trying to get rid of the kid, that's fine. That's just how the game is played, and I get it." By now the tall hermit of the mountains was getting deadly serious, "I said it before, I ain't fighting kids, so if you think you've got anyone that fits that description that can put him down feel free to send them. But let me get one thing clear; after I found out that you were really here for his head, the only reason I didn't take yours off on the spot was because you were Minato's kid."

"Funny." Kakashi quipped, "…That's the only reason I didn't take his head off either." That hadn't been what Jiraiya had been expecting, and his face reflected as much, "And I'll relay the message to the council. Unless you want to keep fighting?"

He sincerely hoped Jiraiya didn't want to. Even if he went all out and had assistance from another two or three conventional jounin, they still probably wouldn't beat Jiraiya.

"Nah, I feel lazy tonight. And if I killed you, who would tell them to call off the elites?" Jiraiya asked, "Remember, for every jounin or chunin they send before I think he's ready they'd better have something else prepared; a bodybag for the trip back."

Kakashi regarded Jiraiya with one last look before turning his back on the older ninja. As he expected, Jiraiya was entirely unwilling to attack him. The man was honest to a fault for a ninja, "…You know, I like that kid. I don't think anything like this has ever happened before." Someone surviving being cast out and then actually resurfacing, all actually surviving the attacks on his life? Unheard of.

Jiraiya smirked and chuckled, "He wants to change our culture. Not too much, but enough to adjust to the times. It is kind of archaic isn't it?"

"Well evolution is the key to survival after all. I hope I live long enough to see what happens." The younger white-haired man said before springing off in 'retreat', one last comment ghosting back to Jiraiya in the wind, "Who knows? Maybe one day I'll get to fight him again myself."

All Jiraiya could do was laugh his bellowing laugher, drowned out by the sound of the city; cars, trains, people down in the streets, and wind. He'd officially drawn the line in the sand for his Homeland. Whether he worked for them or not, there was one thing he was unwilling to allow to happen.

If Konoha wanted to 'ask' for anything else from the family that spawned that boy, they would have to do it straight-up and give him a fighting chance, because if they didn't Jiraiya wasn't going to give their agents a fighting chance.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Twenty-two blocks south, six blocks west, and there was a clinic. Huh, it looked pretty official. Good, because while Kakashi hadn't hit them very much when he did make contact it hurt like hell. It was as if he were playing with them the entire time.

After everything that had happened so far Naruto wasn't about to risk the lives of Takeda and Freya again, thus he was the one that walked up to the door of the clinic and decided to look in first.

Okay, everything was cool. No one was in the front waiting room, and the only person he could see was some girl on her laptop behind the desk. Despite her nice receptionist kind of attire she had her pink hair pinned up in a short ponytail, probably so if she could keep it out of her face if she was needed for medical stuff.

Yeah, this place was legit.

And then a scalpel flew past his face and stabbed into the wall right by where he'd stuck his head in. Wide-eyed, he looked at the only possible person that could have thrown it at him.

"You know, people that hover around medical clinics like you and your friends outside are really suspicious and shady." The pink-haired girl said before turning her emerald eyes up to let Naruto know that she knew full well he'd entered and had more with him, "Fair warning."

"…That was a brick wall." Naruto said, slowly entering and trying for the hell of it to tug it out. It took a bit more difficulty than he wanted, because she buried it quite a ways up to the handle, "You put a scalpel through brick."

"Mmm, I did." The girl said with a pleasant smile that was completely pasted onto her face, "It's just my way of letting troublemakers know that just because this is a clinic, don't expect to be able to put the squeeze on it.

"R-Really?"

"I'm kind of proactive instead of reactive. You'd be surprised how many drug dealers like to make a soft target of clinics run by women for prescription medicine. Now if you're not here to start anything, you must need help."

"Ah…" Naruto was certain that if he looked at his reflection he'd find himself looking quite bedraggled, so it must have been obvious to her. It also might have given some credence to the 'thug' initiative she'd taken with him, "Yeah, me and my two friends outside." He said as he tried his luck on walking further inside, "We kinda got beaten up."

Understatement.

The girl let out a sigh but she could clearly see that he'd gotten his butt kicked a bit, "She's not going to like this." She said to herself in a bit of a sing-song manner as she got up to head to the very back where a home was attached, "She hates doing work after 6."

Oh. Well if the doctor lady was going to be pissed, it was probably going to behoove him to smooth things over before anything could even start, "…Uh, Jiraiya sent me." Naruto said, "I was told to say that."

The pink-haired girl raised an eyebrow, 'That's a strange name, and a strange thing to send our way but… eh.' She nodded anyway, gesturing with her hand, "Please bring your friends inside and take a seat. Someone will be with you in just a bit."

XxX

(Moments Before – Outside of the Clinic)

"Things could have been worse." Takeda commented to Freya after Naruto ran up to the door of the clinic to check things out in advance, "I could have gotten my arm paralyzed again or something. Hell, you didn't even get your staff broken."

"That man was toying with us." Freya said, staring at the ground in dejection, "He didn't start taking us seriously until the two moments we caught him off-guard."

Takeda nodded in grim remembrance, "…That's why I got myself a master. These fights, they aren't just dumb delinquent crap anymore, and the stakes are higher than exhibition or prize-fighting. It's getting real."

Even so, they weren't that man's concern in the slightest. They both knew full well that they could have left at any time and Kakashi would have left them alone. All he wanted was Naruto.

"It's scary, but it's exciting." Takeda said, his grin quickly taking its place back on his face, "It might be wrong, but I'm more motivated to train now than I ever was boxing professionally. Real martial artists of all sorts, ninjas… things of that sort. That's what the Shade Alliance is getting ready for. That's what we ran into tonight."

Who they fought, that man was so far ahead of anything they'd ever faced before. Kakashi didn't even need a free limb to easily handle them all at once. To find someone that far out of one's league could do one of two things.

It could either make you crumble and break apart your fighting spirit, ending things for you before they ever even began. After, all how could you ever realistically expect to catch up to anyone that powerful?

Then again, it could also show you an example of what you could one day rise to the level of being able to face. The thought of reaching that sort of skill, the challenge of possibly taking on and overcoming such a force, it was thrilling. A fulfilling plateau to try and get oneself to if any existed in this walk of life.

CRASH!

Upon hearing a horrible noise from the inside of the medical clinic, both Takeda and Freya hurried through the front door only to find a curious sight upon entering.

A door to the back had seemingly been torn off, taking the entire frame and corresponding wall with it. A woman with a large bust visible behind the doctor's coat that she couldn't quite button all the way, blonde hair in two long tails down her back and a light blue diamond mark on her forehead had Naruto held up by his backpack face-to-face.

Great. More scary people.

"So, Jiraiya sent you did he?" The woman asked Naruto who was still reeling over seeing this woman basically rip an entire wall down just from opening a door, "How is that old goat? He doesn't need any medical treatment by any chance does he?"

"No. No, he doesn't." Naruto asked, trying not to let his nerves shine through in his tone, "Just me, and them." He said, gesturing to his friends before waving at them, "Hi guys. This is my life. Full of scary people. Welcome to it."

"Feh." The woman said, dropping Naruto back into his seat, "That's too bad. It would have made my night to see Jiraiya suffering a little bit." She scrutinized Freya and Takeda before sighing, "Alright, follow me to the back, I'll see to you two." She said before looking back in Naruto's direction, "Not you. You wait here."

From the speed the woman displayed just walking across the room to snatch him up, and from the strength of effortlessly picking him up like a dumbbell, the battered blond wasn't about to argue. Besides, he was more than willing to let them go first.

After watching his friends head off to be touched up, Naruto sighed and relaxed back in the chair, "I think I'm scared of doctors now."

Seeing the reaction of her boss to hearing the Jiraiya name and following her all the way back to the front to see how she 'greeted' Naruto, the pink-haired girl sort of took pity on Naruto, "Come here." She said, getting Naruto to come with her to a different room to treat him herself, "So that was Tsunade-shishou. She's kind of intense sometimes if you didn't notice."

"I wonder what Ero-sennin did to that woman to get her to react like that."

"Well first of all if you call him that, I can only imagine why she doesn't really like him." Going silent for a moment, she checked over each of Naruto's limbs and then his torso itself before speaking again, "It's really kind of for the same reason she doesn't seem to like you. She isn't very fond of ninjas."

"You know I'm a ninja?" Naruto asked in shock before looking down at his feet, "Ugh, the footsteps." Or the lack thereof. The hallmark of a genin was that they unconsciously didn't make footsteps due to their training, but because of that those that knew something about ninjas could find the ninja that didn't know how to intentionally walk with noise when doing things regularly.

The girl stuck her tongue out at Naruto teasingly as she finished checking him over, "Well nothing's hurt too badly, mostly bumps and bruises that'll fade in a few days. Your wrist was dislocated though, but I see someone already put that back in place." Naruto averted his eyes embarrassedly, getting the girl to sigh, "I'll get you something for that."

"Don't worry about it." Naruto assured her. In the end he'd just wind up taking whatever it was off the second he needed to use that hand again, "So since my… handler knows your boss/teacher/whatever, I guess I should say that my name's Naruto; nuke-nin of Konoha."

"Sakura." After she finished examining the wounds on Naruto's face she moved back with a smile to get some things from nearby to clean and cover the injuries, "Second apprentice of retired ninja turned professional physician Tsunade. Keep that first part to yourself would you?" She finished with a wink.

Naruto was still kind of thrown off though. Ninjas retired?

* * *

**The game is fucking afoot people! I have been sent a challenge by a very brave man. I must put out eight chapters of overall story using any combination of stories I have in my docket within exactly two weeks of (EST) 2:15 p.m. August 17****th**** 2013, and my prize will be glorious upon victory. **

_**Absolutely glorious**_**.**

**I will of course adhere to my usual length of at least 10,000 words and my standards of always trying to improve on my writing as I do this, but let's just say that a fire has been lit underneath my ass and I plan on destroying this challenge in as short an order as humanly possible for an adult with responsibilities.**

**I am a machine, and by the time August 31****st**** rolls around, my challenger will know this to be the truth.**

**So endeth my declaration of intent. Game on.**

**Oh, and of course I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.**

…**Now read on if it strikes your fancy to do so, because I posted more than this.**


	23. Rules of Engagement

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. I just took my fist out of the TV screen after saying that. I think I have tendon damage now because those are some really deep cuts. Not going to do that again.

You go ahead and read this while I get a ride to the emergency room… because I do not trust myself to not black out from blood loss while driving.

*Note: This is the second chapter of a double post of this story.*

**Chapter 23: Rules of Engagement**

* * *

A powerful hand destroyed the desk beneath it, turning it into splinters out of anger, "He said WHAT!?" A gruff, hulking dark-skinned man bellowed from beneath his robes.

This meeting to discuss the mission results sent in by one Hatake Kakashi did not wind up brokering the results that they'd seen coming after determining the identity of the man they'd sent to take the Uzumaki boy down.

"Calm yourself A-dono." A cooler-tempered, significantly younger voice said, onyx eyes peering around his much older peers as he spoke, "There's nothing that can be done if Jiraiya has truly endeavored to shield this boy, unless you're willing to break tradition and go after him yourself." Everyone there knew just how much Jiraiya's reputation preceded him, "Is it really that much of an issue however?"

At that, the large robed Kage representative sat down with a grunt. He wasn't going to break tradition just to kill a failed student.

One-eyed Danzo cleared his throat and spoke up, garnering the attention of the small group, "Itachi-dono… you are relatively new to the council so you may be unfamiliar with a certain secret project. Suffice it to say, this boy isn't the garden-variety dropout. Inside of his mind he holds very important secrets of our clan. Only Sarutobi's merciful declaration that we should see to him as if he were any other washout spared him from being disposed of immediately after it was clear the project had failed again."

"And of course we see how that worked out." Hiashi said with a distinct lack of bitterness in his tone despite his own personal stake in the fate of the boy in question, "I can't comprehend how a ninja that missed four years of curriculum could defeat Neji under any circumstances."

He was the only one that could have. The reports from the other genin that had been sent home from the failed mission had been beaten by other interlopers. No one saw Neji die, but from his injuries it was evident he met his end in battle. No one else could have done it.

"Naruto was… the best candidate given everything tangible and intangible about him." Hiruzen said, smoking his pipe as he conversed with the Kage Council, "Between what he inherited genealogically from Kushina and Minato, both outstanding shinobi, the potential for him was incredible. I could even say that he would have rivaled your brother in talent if he'd completed the basic training."

Speaking of Minato and Kushina, had they still been alive they never would have used their experimental ki release ritual on him. They would have accepted him being cut loose 1000 times over before accepting him having a technique tested on him.

Hell, maybe if they'd remained alive and in the fold he would have completed his training altogether.

"But he didn't complete it. There was too much stallion in that boy to break to satisfaction." Danzo said with a measure of distaste, "After his parents died, he simply became inflexible to our teachings. He took what he wanted from what we taught and applied it to his own philosophy." The old man shook his head, "We would never have used a functional, splendid shinobi for something so dangerous. His candidacy for the project was his last chance, and the subsequent failure of it was the end of that, as they say."

"It was a failure that was learned from however." Hiruzen said, "Due to the mental manipulation of the ritual, the ki of the individual was enhanced extensively. But this was obviously extremely dangerous considering those with inherent Dou ki traits. For an adolescent child it's impossible to contain that much horrible fury."

"With his trigger being anything ranging from catastrophic injury, severe distress, grave anger, or anything else under the sun that could trigger negative emotions, we simply could not risk keeping him around the others." Danzo explained. He had a major part in choosing candidates for the experiment, thus making him one of the most qualified to speak on it.

"In other words…"

"In other words Itachi-dono, he's a ticking time bomb." Danzo concluded, "Even if nothing has happened since his initial episode-." And he wasn't entirely convinced it hadn't just because they'd never heard of it, "-One day it will. That's life. His ki levels have only grown with him. He's more dangerous than ever. I don't have to tell any of you why this would be a bad thing."

No one else there said anything.

XxX

(With Naruto – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

"Ninjas retire?" Shigure asked, at the conclusion of her training with Naruto for the afternoon. As he often was, Naruto was covered in a round of fresh cuts, and as Jiraiya requested, she pushed him until his legs shook just from putting some muscle behind them. After he collapsed in the yard she just remained out there with him until he could crawl somewhere better or stand up to leave, "That sounds inconsistent… with what we know."

"I know right?" Naruto replied, smiling over at her from lying flat on his back. Even if things hurt he learned something new, and man did it hurt. Jiraiya's sadism had clearly bled over into the Ryouzanpaku segment of his training from how things had been going lately. Shigure had come up with several new methods of training more sadistic than the last batch she'd sent his way.

His new cardio and speed training was deplorable, but his personal most-hated out of the new set of exercises was 'Read or Die', which was almost self-explanatory as to what he had to do. The imagination could be liberally applied if it wasn't, but for those lacking in that department it involved Naruto having to stand still and anticipate an attack from Shigure.

Dodging it was something else entirely since he could never do it damage-free, but as long as he could start seeing attacks he couldn't necessarily avoid he could save himself from damage too catastrophic. Especially from her.

Still, when they were done with everything, the relief was the best feeling in the world. It almost made it worth training so hard. And Shigure would always stick around him to make sure he could eventually go home, so he could talk to her, like right then. She was a good person to sound things off of.

"But it wasn't just that girl." Naruto continued, wishing he could scratch his nose but finding himself too drained to waste the energy to do so, "Ero-sennin said it on the way home too." He didn't say anymore than that since it apparently wasn't Naruto's business, but he said that much at least, "It's been two days but it gives me some hope for the future actually."

Eventually, a large shadow passed over Naruto's face, the owner of which being one Apachai Hopachai. Say what you will about the man, but Naruto figured that at least he was constantly happy to see him. He even had Honoka riding on his shoulders, so there was a secondary bonus, "Apa, Honoka, here is Naruto!"

Hearing that, the young girl frowned and patted Apachai on top of his head, "But I didn't want to see Lemonhead today. I wanted to see onii-chan…"

"Nice to see you too Tidbit." Naruto drawled dryly, only to have her dumped off of Apachai's shoulders to land on his chest like a crash pad, "Oof! If I wasn't so unbreakable…"

"Have you seen my brother around here Lemonhead?" Honoka asked with an honest curiosity in her eyes, "I've been looking, but I haven't seen him in two days. Him or 'Big-boobs' either."

Naruto stopped and sounded out the second nickname before shrugging and realizing that it had to be Miu being referred to as 'Big-boobs', since Shigure was sitting right there and wasn't hard to locate while she was training him in afternoons.

Well around _there_? No, Naruto hadn't seen them. He saw them in school however, and in school Kenichi looked like hell. If Naruto's training was being enhanced to 'can't walk' levels on both sides by Shigure and Jiraiya, Kenichi was getting it on five sides. And Miu had to train directly with Hayato. Every day. Enough said.

Clearly they'd taken Kenichi to somewhere else on the property to train him, probably since they didn't want to make the mistake of letting Honoka see just how nasty things could get with the intrinsic training they were subjecting him to. Hell, Kenichi had even stopped complaining for the time being. Probably because he didn't want to waste that sweet, sweet recovery time in school bitching when the guy he'd bitch to was just as lumped up as him.

Naruto already knew why. Oh, did he ever know why.

_(Flashback – Two Nights Ago)_

"_I'd say tonight could have been worse." Naruto's voice resonated from outside, "I didn't die, I learned something, I met a pretty doctor girl, and… something else cool happened that I'm not going to tell you."_

_The front door to the house opened up, rousing Shikamaru and Tenten from their droll lull of watching TV in the living room as Jiraiya walked in and dropped Naruto on the loveseat couch by himself._

"_I'd let the doctor girl thing go kid." Jiraiya said to him, continuing a conversation that the other two weren't privy to from before, "If that girl is anything like Tsunade, she's pretty much conditioned to dislike ninjas. Even if Tsunade didn't train her to be a ninja, from what you said she could still turn your head to pulp. And no, I'm not telling you why. It ain't my business to tell or yours to know."_

"_A retired ninja that hates ninjas." Naruto muttered to himself in thought, grabbing his nearby guitar and beginning to fail miserably at idly playing it, "Weird." He then noticed Tenten and Shikamaru staring at him intently. Come to think of it, they looked like they'd had a run of trouble themselves today, "What the hell happened to you two?" At that, a thick metal coin smacked off of his forehead, "Ow! Damn it Tenten!"_

_Leaning back in her seat, Tenten just smoothed a hand over her face, revealing a bandaged throwing hand, "That's for you. Apparently someone from YOMI wants to challenge you. Congratulations."_

_Hearing that from the entranceway to the living room, Jiraiya snorted, "Yami, teaching their kids that ceremonial junk. What kind of old-school crap is that?" Oh well. Just because they wanted to play things like that didn't mean they had to go along with it. Since they knew what was coming they could be ready for it._

_Shikamaru picked up where Tenten had left off, "So we're walking home from the HQ, and lo and behold, someone had basically set up a net watch for you. But they got us instead, and they didn't like getting their covers blown."_

"_Not really much of a cover." Tenten pointed out in a deadpan, "You see too many people in suits in a neighborhood like the one around here… it's kind of suspicious. Just saying."_

"_Did you kill anyone?" Naruto asked, looking over the coin and the emblem on it._

"_I dunno." That sounded about right coming from her… or any one of them._

"_Did you loot this?" Curiosity getting the better of him, Naruto bit at the gold coin like he'd seen on TV. He still didn't know how that proved if it was real gold or not, but it seemed like a cool thing to do._

"_No, the last man standing coughed it up saying something about delivering a message and then he charged Shikamaru." One could guess as to how that ended._

"_Why him?"_

_At that, Tenten coughed embarrassedly, "They kind of all went after me first. I beat them myself before they could get close to me. It was ugly… and fast." She added after the fact for Jiraiya's benefit, getting a nod of approval for her trouble._

"_Then why's your hand busted?"_

"_I trained with Kisara-chan before we came home."_

"_Oh."_

(End Flashback)

XxX

(The Next Day – Koryou High School)

Along with the coin he also received two tickets to some sort of play. More than likely the venue for the challenge, or if nothing else the place where the terms of the challenge would be discussed. He didn't know how they handled things.

If they thought he was going to play by their rules and play into their hands they obviously didn't deal with very many ninjas in advance.

Still though, ever since receiving the coin, Naruto had been seemingly entranced by it. He was almost tempted to spend all of his spare time flipping it off of his thumb but figured he had enough problems looking like a weird delinquent as it was. He didn't need to throw any gasoline on that fire.

Idly staring at it, Naruto was barely paying attention as he walked on the edge of the safety fence surrounding the rooftop of the school. Balance wasn't really an issue at this point in time. Jiraiya had him running speedy laps around elevated reinforced gutters on his house at home. He could handle slowly walking on the railing of a fence.

'Okay, so I got called out. Big deal. Bring it on.' He thought to himself, 'If I win I win. If I lose I lose. Same as always.'

"So it's started already?" Niijima said, spotting Naruto as he exited the doorway making his way onto the roof, "That's the emblem of water. Know who you're fighting?" Naruto just shook his head, "So you just got the challenge? Nothing to go with it?"

"I got show tickets to some artsy classic stuff for 9 p.m. tonight. That's it."

"Did you now?"

"_Two_ tickets." Naruto said, with emphasis on two, "So I've gotta actually pick carefully about who I'm taking to this thing. I need someone useful in case the shit goes down." Implying that Niijima's curiosity in wanting to delve further and dig up more dirt on YOMI wouldn't be very useful for him when he was actually squaring off with one of them.

"What about one of your masters?" Niijima suggested, shivering at the memory of the woman with the sword from his past delving into learning of Naruto and Kenichi's training, "I really can't think of anything more secure than that."

"It's a challenge from a disciple." While Naruto was willing to totally cheat his ass off in order to keep from falling into a trap, he was assured that the masters would keep their hands off of him at all costs unless he attacked them himself, "I know there's no such thing as a fair fight, but there is such a thing as being a pussy."

Jiraiya wasn't in town anyway. He was abroad, doing… whatever it was that Jiraiya did when he wasn't crashing at Naruto's house.

Aside from that, Jiraiya and Shigure both separately assured him that it was strictly a showdown between disciples, and if he brought masters into it that would make more trouble than could be safely contained. Satsujinken aside, these people had a sense of honor as martial artists when it came to these official challenges. Challenging Naruto really meant that they were challenging Ryouzanpaku, Naruto as a technical representative had to back it up and show his face or the people connected to the woman teaching him would lose face.

Besides, as a ninja they couldn't possibly be expecting him to show up for a face-to-face. If anything, whoever it was that had sent the request was probably making contingency plans for when he didn't turn up.

So by that logic, actually showing up would be the last thing they expected! Aha! He was brilliant!

"Still though…" Niijima said, the bowl-cut bow stroking his chin in thought, "It would be nice to have something of a ringer in your back pocket."

Yes. Because bending the rules wasn't the same thing as breaking them, "…Adhering to the unwritten code as much as possible of course."

"But of course." Niijima's almost evil grin was on full display, "Any ideas my Operations Commander?"

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Inside of Class)

"You're going to what!?" Kenichi screeched a bit louder than he intended in the classroom. As normal he had lunch there with Naruto and Miu, but today's lunch came with a bit of a strange request from his best friend to his secret crush.

Naruto cleared out his ear with a finger and a cringe in response, "I didn't say I was gonna do anything. I asked a question. I wasn't even asking you anyway. I was totally asking Miu-chan." He finished, gesturing to the blonde girl still holding up a thermos and quite confused at what was transpiring.

"What kind of question is that to ask a girl!?" Kenichi said, showing more life during the daytime than he had over the last few days. Whenever it came to Miu he would always jump to conclusions and potentially freak out, "W-What did you mean by that?"

Squinting his eyes in confusion, Naruto crossed his arms over his chest in his seat before speaking slowly, as if that would help, "I have two tickets to some show. I want her to go with me." He said before amending his last sentence, "I kind of need her to go with me. There's no one better to ask and no one else I would have asked first." He nodded, confident that there was no possible way his words could have been further misconstrued.

Sadly, he was dead wrong about this.

"At a time like this, you'd ask her to go to something like this with you?" Kenichi queried. How could Naruto ask anyone on a date when YOMI was doling out challenges to the two of them? ESPECIALLY MIU!? "We've got battles to prepare for."

"Now's the best time to ask her. When else would I do it?" Sheesh, the show was tonight. Naruto figured he needed to give her some time to prepare in case she said yes to him. That was just common courtesy. He was willing to be courteous to friends.

'Since were challenged and could get confronted and killed in a fight any day now he figures now is the best time to ask her out?' This was Kenichi's reasoning as to Naruto's words. And honestly, reading things that way he wished he had Naruto's guts to ask Miu out so directly.

As did everyone else listening from within or just outside of the classroom. Miu was widely perceived as the most gorgeous girl out of the first-year students, and possibly the school, even with her braid and glasses disguise to try and make herself look more plain, '…He really _doesn't_ afraid of anything does he?' This was the consensus thought of Kenichi and multiple other male students listening in who had also mistaken the intent of Naruto's offer.

With things settled as Kenichi was left pondering in his own world, Naruto turned to Miu and gave her a wide grin, "So how about it? Would you go? If not I could probably figure something else out, but I'd really love it if it was you."

He might have been able to ask Renka if he was really in a pinch, but he didn't want to make her catch a train from Yokohama all the way to his town on such short notice. That was just inconsiderate for a favor. Miu was the best bet for guaranteed disciple-level asskicking backup as well as the closest one available.

And after asking her like that, how could she possibly turn him down? She'd wanted him to ask them for help when he needed it ever since the ninja episode. Here the time came and he didn't even hesitate this time around.

Giving him a beaming smile in return she readily accepted, "Of course Naruto-kun!" She said, causing dozens of jaws to respectively drop, both male and female, because what girl would ever figure that someone like Miu would go out with someone like Naruto? They would have counted on hell freezing over first, "Oh, what should I wear?"

"I'm assuming, like classic old-school kimono stuff. I don't have any kimono stuff." Naruto mused with a frown, "…I need to get some kimono stuff. Where can I get that on short notice?" Maybe his dad had something that could fit him in storage.

Kenichi just stared in astonishment at how casually this had all transpired. His best friend had basically asked out the girl of his dreams right in front of him and she'd accepted.

What the hell was happening today?

XxX

(With Jiraiya - Tokyo, Japan)

After the night that Tsunade was introduced to Naruto, Jiraiya decided that was as good an excuse as any to try and renew an old friendship with a beautiful woman that just so happened to be one of his oldest acquaintances.

In a bid to leave the old life behind, Tsunade had begun her own medical practice. Ambitious. He liked that about her. A woman after his own heart, making her own enterprise in the world so that she needed absolutely nothing from the Konohagakure establishment.

It was similar to why he chose to be an author.

However, similarities aside there was one thing that markedly kept them apart and left them on different sides of the fence. Tsunade had quit being a ninja, and Jiraiya was still active and loyal to Konoha… except for when he chose to disregard orders and customs of course.

Walking into the house area attached to the clinic, Sakura let out a sigh as she passed through Tsunade's business office to check in on her master, catching her at her desk writing with her glasses on, "Tsunade-shishou, Jiraiya-san. Do either of you need anything?"

Jiraiya opened his mouth with a grin, but Tsunade spoke up and cut him off without ever looking up from her paperwork, "I don't need anything, thank you Sakura. And don't worry about getting this old pervert anything. He's used to going without." There was a double entendre connotation there that did not go over the pink-haired girl's head in the slightest, "Go ahead and take your break. I'll take over the front desk after I finish up these forms for order."

"Yes ma'am."

Jiraiya listened for the sound of Sakura's heels clicking on the floor to get farther away before deciding to speak, "So your medical apprentice, she's a pretty one. Where'd you find her? She reminds me of you in a few ways."

"In Tokyo of course, and she came to me." She was clearly going to be as succinct as possible in anything she said to him. Passive-aggressive Tsunade was possibly more vindictive than regularly-aggressive Tsunade, "Where'd you find yours?"

"Under a bridge."

"Figures."

A chuckle came from the white-haired hermit as he smiled and looked at his old friend, "How are you getting on Tsunade? It's been a long time since we last spoke. Even longer since you quit." Tsunade just hummed in agreement, "You know I never blamed you for trying to get out."

"Uh huh."

"My kid is on the outs too." Jiraiya admitted, "Not like you, but he's out of the system. Unlike you it wasn't by choice, so in case you see him again, just don't hate him the way you hate me."

Upon hearing that, Tsunade stopped writing and took her reading glasses off, rubbing her eyes tiredly, "Jiraiya, I never hated you. I hate the ninja system. I hate the life. I understand why things were set up the way they were at the time, but it's obsolete now."

"You know how martial arts are though." Jiraiya said, "Any sort of progress is fought against tooth and nail because it threatens tradition, or whatever garbage the grandmasters or the Kage Council would spew."

It was a nasty truth, but it was still the truth regardless. It wasn't just ninjas, it was martial arts in general. All of it.

Blending techniques from other styles into others was usually seen as a bastardization of the pure form of the original art. That was just one example. Things like that existed all across the board. It didn't matter what singular style you fought with, or if you were a ninja, or if you were Katsujinken, Satsujinken, whatever.

It was why when it came to philosophies, everyone was so dead-set on making a distinction between Katsujinken and Satsujinken. Tradition established that there were two sides of the coin, and the specifications for each allowed for no wiggle room.

As complex, as beautiful, as incredible, as storied, as all martial arts were to the people that involved themselves in it, the entire interwoven setup was a rigid system. The gears were rusted and stuck fast when they were attempted to move.

Tsunade turned around in her chair with a pensive look on her face. She and Jiraiya stared at each other for a while before she said anything else, "I… I miss Hashirama-ojii, I miss Dan, I miss Nawaki. I miss Shizune."

"I know."

"It's too much Jiraiya. We've got to put the culture of our Homeland above everything else, even if it kills us? Even if it kills everyone we love?"

"I know."

The look on Jiraiya's face hadn't changed from the grave sense of understanding that he'd fixed upon it from the moment the conversation shifted direction. He did know. He did understand. And as he had already said to her, and had been saying for more than a decade, he did not blame her for getting out.

She had the power to do so, they had nothing on her to make her stay, she didn't depend on them for any sort of sheltering or protection, and more importantly than anything else she just didn't want it anymore. The fact that her clan had been one of the original remnants from the feudal days that formed Konoha didn't have any weight with her if she was the last one left.

After studying Jiraiya's face too long for her liking, Tsunade got up in a huff and headed off to the front desk to sit in while Sakura had her break, "If you're going to keep freeloading around here for a while longer just make sure you don't bother my apprentice you pervert."

Leaning back in his chair, Jiraiya just pushed his turtleshell sunglasses up onto his forehead and stared up at the fan on the ceiling, "Well Tsunade-hime, at least I can tell you that you aren't the only one that thinks the system sucks."

XxX

(With Kenichi – Later That Day – Ryouzanpaku Dojo)

"-And she said yes!" Kenichi said, actually blazing through his training with Akisame, completely making his newest training machine look worthless; a machine that required Kenichi to constantly fight against adjusting resistance in order to simply stand at the ready and allow himself to grapple the oversized, heavy statues that his Jujitsu sensei kept producing for him to work with, "YES! Can you believe that Akisame-sensei?"

What he couldn't believe was that Kenichi was autopiloting it through his most recent creation. Perhaps he had to go back to the drawing board to come up with a new torture device-, err, exercise machine, "Uh, no I can't Kenichi-kun. By the way, do you feel anything right now?"

Like pain or discomfort? The kind of discomfort where his muscles were screaming and begging him to be put out of his misery? That was what he was going for. It was all in the name of progress. Kenichi was sweating and clearly working his ass off, but he was accustomed to seeing more of a crying kind of, 'Why in God's name are you doing this to me?' sweat than a simple hard workout sweat from him.

"I don't know what I feel about it sensei!" Kenichi cried, hurling another statue into the corner of the room with textbook technique only learned through constant repetition, "I mean, he had the right to ask her and she had the right to say yes, but just… gah!"

Another statue thrown down to the ground.

Akisame sighed before keeping his composure in its normal, cool demeanor, "Well I think we're done for today." He needed to readjust things to make the machine more difficult before deciding to use it again, "About your problem; you can either talk to Miu about it or simply let things run their course."

As he was unhooked from the machine and walked out of the dojo, Kenichi figured he wasn't lucky enough to let things run their course. If he did that, with his fortune the two of them would get married within three weeks. Of course Naruto notably wasn't that lucky in life either, so maybe the two forces would balance each other out and make it a wash.

It all depended on who had been luckier or unluckier lately. Which one of them was riding the hot hand so to speak?

Upon entering the main house where he saw Miu's attire for the evening, Kenichi could then certainly say that given the recent events and what he was currently looking at, Naruto was the one riding the hot hand. No question about it.

Blonde hair pinned up tastefully, she wore an ornate light green kimono with a wide yellow obi beneath her bust, decorated with several different colorful designs, most notably four solid white feathers.

Assisting her in a final check-through to ensure that she was ready to go, Shigure gave her the all-clear signal after finishing up, "All… done."

"I don't know why this fits so well." Miu said aloud to herself as she spun around to check herself over, "I've never had a reason to wear this before tonight since I outgrew the one I had before this one." Noticing Kenichi standing dumbstruck at the door she smiled at him with a bit of red staining her cheeks and decided to ask him, "So what do you think Kenichi-kun?"

"Abluh…guh." Kenichi stammered, trying to think of something eloquent to say. All of the books he'd read and he didn't have a useful vocabulary word for right then? Say anything damn it!

"That means it's great." Shigure clarified for her due to Kenichi's lack of actually using human words, "…I wonder if Naruto managed to get one for himself."

And speaking of the devil.

"Why don't these come in orange?" Naruto asked Sakaki as he walked into the main house as well, wearing his own rather simple kimono in black, with a design of silver branches decorating it along with a red obi, "A good shade of burnt orange. Darker orange, for class, you know?"

Sakaki shook his head as he let Naruto enter first, "You're asking the wrong guy kid. I don't know why people wore this status crap back then anyway. Who could wear this and move like they wanted to if they wanted to fight?"

"I dunno. Hey, maybe that's the… point?" Naruto trailed off upon catching sight of the girl that was to be accompanying him that evening. He had to stop and stare for a moment, "Whoa. I'm starting to feel like the plus-one here, and I'm the one that asked her to go in the first place."

"Well there's a reason for that." Sakaki said with a grin, patting Naruto roughly on the shoulder, "She looks _way_ better than you. Maybe if taking a comb and a brush to your head actually fixed anything up there-."

"-All of my hate Karate Bum." Naruto replied grumpily after the jab at his hair, "We all can't slick our shit back like some people." Getting over that quickly, Naruto punched into his palm and grinned at his weapons teacher and his 'date' for the evening, "Alright Miu-chan, are you ready to go?"

"Absolutely."

After hearing that, it was five minutes later when Kenichi recovered to find that Naruto and Miu were both gone and the other present masters were busy drinking, watching TV, etcetera.

He had completely missed the fact that his brain had stroked itself off for a few minutes due to the constant levels of shock and awe being hurled his way, "They left?" Kenichi asked, "Just like that? Without even saying goodbye?"

"They said goodbye. Like eight times." Sakaki pointed out, draining the last of the liquid inside of his closest can of beer, "You were too busy doing your best impression of one of Akisame's statues to notice."

"And you're just going to let them go like that?"

"Seemed like a good idea for Naruto to take Miu to be honest." During the course of Kenichi's semi-unconscious state the question had come up as to just why the two of them were going out, and Naruto had clearly and concisely explained what was going on that night and why he needed Miu in particular. All of the masters present got it, "I don't even get why you're worried. Both of them are basically grown up enough for something like this."

"I wonder sometimes with Naruto." Shigure stated slowly, lazing on a cushion as she and Apachai watched TV.

"Hey cut the kid some slack." Sakaki commented amusedly, "Seriously, he really couldn't have picked anyone better to take than Miu given the circumstances."

As with the rest of the day so far, it all went straight over Kenichi's head, "I can't believe this is happening." He mused to himself as he put his shoes on and wandered out of the main house in the direction of the main gate, "Did I wait too long? But I'm still not strong enough to actually protect her. That was the promise I made." Everything was making his head hurt, "Maybe I should just-?"

"-Follow along after them to ease your mind?"

Hanging over the outside wall of the Ryouzanpaku property, Niijima leered down at Kenichi, frightening him almost out of his foot wraps, "What are you doing here you damn spying alien? Did you know about this?"

"I know everything that happens with the people in my alliance."

"So why didn't you tell him not to take her!?"

"Why would I do that?"

Kenichi wanted to yell, but took a deep breath and simply grabbed Niijima, dragging him to the front gate that he then threw open and walked out into the streets through, "You. You're going to show me where they're going. You're going to get me close enough to watch them."

Instead of saying anything to stop him, Niijima just smiled seedily, "Whaaat? You're actually saying that you need my particular set of skills to help you?"

"Yes." Kenichi admitted begrudgingly, "I can't follow or sneak up on Naruto, he'd know I was following them a mile off. You somehow can."

It was so odd. Naruto and Miu were friends and had known each other for longer, but Kenichi knew that he spent more time with her than Naruto did. In addition to that, nothing about the two of them ever seemed to hint that there was ever a possibility of them going on a date.

And to take her to some show that required formal wear simply for entry with the necessary tickets? Even if Naruto liked a girl and decided to try and take her out, that just didn't seem like his style at all. He'd be bored to death at that kind of thing.

XxX

(With Naruto and Miu – Theatre)

"Ugh…" Naruto groaned under his breath as he walked with his lovely accompaniment through the upper-level hallways of the rather high-society theatre, "This is gonna suck. I'm gonna be bored to death. Maybe that's YOMI's plan for the challenge? Bore the energy out of me and then pick up the scraps."

"Stop slouching and do this right Naruto-kun." Miu said, adjusting Naruto's posture. Honestly, she was here to back him up, not to fuss over him, "Look the part. Aren't ninjas masters of disguise?" She teased.

"Subterfuge wasn't ever my thing. And I'm not disguised, I'm just wearing this stupid kimono." As he said that, Naruto looked down at their ticket stubs. Balcony seats? Someone really sprang big to trap him if that was what this was, "Thanks for coming again by the way."

Renka was way out of town, and Kisara, Freya, and Tenten wouldn't be sufficient aces in the hole, if they'd even say yes to him in the first place. After all, it wasn't like he could bring a guy to a theatre show. That was just weird.

"I'm just glad you're not trying to box your friends out of your troubles again." Miu said, frowning playfully at him before it got a bit more serious, "We never really talked about what happened that night you ran away from me."

"I don't want to talk about it Miu-chan. But thanks for letting me go without a fight." Naruto insisted, "Just… just know that I learned something important from it. And that's the only good thing that happened that night."

"Well if you ever want to tell someone-."

"I know. You're a good girl." No need to get all moody and teenage angsty at a time like this, "Now enough of that. We found our seats so let's go get our Admiral Ackbar on."

"I don't know what that means. Is that a reference to something?"

"…Wow. I wasn't prepared for you to not get that. Just remind me to host a gigantic movie night at the Shade Alliance HQ sometime and it might be funny then."

"Okay."

Their seats were in a booth that they basically had to themselves. From where they were they could see the stage, the whole crowd, and the other balcony seats around the area.

If this were a situation under more intimate circumstances between two people that liked each other in that way, this could have been seen as a date. But no one in a reasonable state of mind would have possibly figured this to be anything like that.

That was just ludicrous.

Taking a seat, Naruto started scanning around to pinpoint places for an ambush, just in case, 'There's always the door, but we could both just jump down out of the box if we wanted more space or wanted to run. Maybe an attack from another box, but that's ballsy.'

"I don't like the looks of these people." Miu said as she observed the crowd down below, "Is it just me or are there a lot of shady types?" No one that they couldn't handle yet from what she could see and sense, but this lot wasn't a particular grouping of people that the average person would feel safe around, "Do you want to bet that Yami bought out the place for tonight's show?"

"That's a lot of trouble just to screw me to the wall unless they knew I'd take you too isn't it?" Naruto asked, "I'm not even the number one disciple. I just represent you guys because Shigure trains me and it's only fair to take pride in it."

On the other hand Miu was Ryouzanpaku's princess, in his own words, so she had more value than down-on-his-luck outcast ninja didn't she? But there was no way that anyone could basically anticipate that he'd bring her without a shadow of a doubt. He'd just decided to do it that afternoon.

"Well that's because it's not particularly intended to slaughter you, silly boy."

Naruto pulled back the curtain at the right side railing of the box and was immediately met with an imposing level of ki, 'W-Whoa. I think she's stronger than Shigure.'

He gave the best poker face he could, but when the woman spectator in the adjacent box turned her dark eyes his way instead of at the stage where they'd been facing he knew that she could see the hesitance in his eyes. He didn't know Sei types could be so scary.

She hadn't even done anything yet. Looking at him was all it took to take him aback, and she'd only done that for two or three seconds before watching the stage again, waiting for the show to begin.

Naruto dug his fingernails into his palm hard enough to draw blood so that he would snap himself out of whatever was wrong with him with pain. It worked. Miu hadn't finished recovering by then however, the poor thing, but because she'd travelled around with Hayato and seen her share of screwed up things and sickeningly powerful people it didn't take her too much longer to manage.

'This can't be the normal kind of master that Yami has at their disposal.' Miu thought to herself, 'Comparing her to us would be like… like trying to measure the volume of the sky or something.'

The woman seemed very young for a master with that sort of strength. She had very long black hair, wore a red bead necklace around her neck, and was clearly extremely well endowed due to how she had her bust visible through the top of her white and red formal kimono. It seemed like she was some sort of classic beautiful goddess of destruction.

And she had already sized them up with nothing more than a side glance, "Uzumaki Naruto I presume, and you even brought Hayato-kun's granddaughter as well." At that she spared Miu a second look, "Hm."

Miu and Naruto looked at one another, the former asking wordlessly from her expression if she'd just been dismissed vindictively and the latter shrugging in confusion. He didn't understand the underlying meaning in the things women said.

There was danger afoot however, and one of them had to say something, "We don't know who you are." Miu ventured to say in order to break the tension.

"Yes, I suppose Hayato-kun wouldn't talk about me much anymore." The woman said, further confusing the two. That old man had some explaining to do later whenever he rolled back into town, "I am Kushinada Mikumo. One of Yami's One Shadow Nine Fists. And you are here so that one thing is perfectly clear for you. My disciple will be the one that kills you."

"Your disciple?"

At Mikumo's right side there was a little girl no older than 12 or 13, dressed similarly to her with a nigh emotionless look on her face. She turned her eyes at Naruto for just a moment similarly to her master before disregarding him entirely.

Naruto's eye twitched at the sight of her, "Oi, I'm not fighting her. She's miniature. If she isn't kicking my ass the entire time until I turn the tables and end it I'll feel terrible about it." Fighting with girls, no problem. But fighting with a girl that age? Yeah, why not just kick Honoka while he was at it?

"Well I can assure you that Chikage will most likely destroy someone like you with no more than five techniques, so you won't have to worry about your conscience." Mikumo said confidently as the curtains went up and applause rang out through the theatre, "It's unavoidable. You've already received the emblem of challenge, and she can't take it back until she defeats you or kills you herself. All that's left is setting a time and place for the battle, but that in of itself could be a problem."

"Why?"

"Because she won't be your first challenger."

"But I've got your coin thingy. It's the only one I got." Naruto said, fishing out the water emblem gold piece and holding it up, "By the way, I don't know what this is good for. It's not money. I can't use this to buy stuff." He got a flat look in return from Miu as kabuki instruments began to play, "I… kind of tried already."

Mikumo had to restrain herself from shooting him a look, 'Oh dear lord he's an idiot.' "Be that as it may, it's merely a formal declaration of intent. You've already been claimed for a first challenge. I'll let you check around and cast your guesses as to who issued it."

It was as if a cloud had been lifted from Naruto and Miu's heads, and not particularly for the better. Mikumo's mere force of presence and her proximity to the two of them had been enough to keep several other notable ones in the theatre from their notice.

That trick was so old-school, using your aura to try and hide that of others, Naruto used to do it in middle school to mask how weak Kenichi's used to be to subconsciously deter more bullies than he otherwise would have gotten. Hers was so imposing it covered the entire building and masked multiple potent signatures until she chose to rein it in.

Significantly lesser than hers, closer in line with theirs, but even for disciples these people were strong and they were letting Naruto and Miu know it by looking right at them with intent.

The other balcony boxes around the theatre. They could see them.

Six teenagers all over, not counting Chikage, all dressed in the appropriate attire for their setting.

A large, muscular young American man with short blond hair and a stoic expression sitting with a hard stare in their direction. The American girl with long wavy blonde hair sitting in the box with him was decidedly more animated in her staredown, leaning over the railing to show off her rather formidable… assets. Man, whoever modified that kimono for her should have been ashamed of themselves for letting that girl show that much skin.

Miu pouted at the exhibitionism of the girl while Naruto had to pretend that he wasn't watching those parts of her body. He totally was. There was no possible way he could deny it if pressed about it.

"Codenames Pollux and Castor. Siblings, but with different masters and fighting styles. It's rare for siblings to have that much talent together in such markedly different methods of martial arts."

In another box, instead of wearing Japanese clothing, this boy wore a hooded cowl covering his long black ponytail and Chinese robes. The look on his face was extremely intense, and he carried himself like a man that had something to prove.

"'Pure Dragon' Enshin Chou." Mikumo explained, ignoring Naruto's snort at Chou's nickname, "More of a placeholder disciple for the proper representative of Chinese Kenpo until the disciple of the man meant to replace his master improves, but do not mistake that for weakness. He wouldn't be worth mentioning were he not fully worth the consideration."

In the next box they looked into, Naruto felt a sense of déjà vu. Mostly because it contained Asamiya Ryuuto. They had been acquainted during the crazy genin invasion days a short while back, but he already knew that he'd taken a place in YOMI. Apparently a high position from the looks of things. Upon noting that he had Naruto and Miu's attention, Ryuuto simply waved at them as if they were old friends.

Not particularly true, but Naruto didn't necessarily hate him. He just didn't agree with him and the way he did things with Ragnarok, and how everything with that group ended especially.

"Codename: Odin. But I'm certain you already know each other fairly well. He has several extremely unique traits about him that make him one of the most dangerous of the disciples of the One Shadow Nine Fists."

Next up was a rather lavishly modified box. The chairs were replaced with cushions and pillows, with a dark-skinned young man being attended to by all sorts of servants and foreign beauties.

"Royalty. Nagaraja, the king of snakes. The crown prince of Tidat; Radin Tidat Jihan."

"I get the chance to beat up a king?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow, interest piqued, "Like legit punch him in the face and it won't start a war or something? I call that guy. I want to fight that guy really bad."

"You don't get to pick. We determine which disciple faces you." Mikumo clarified for the hard-headed one, "Our disciples have no reason to accept any challenge from you. What would the consequence be exactly? Katsujinken martial artists would never attack someone unwilling to oppose them to begin with."

"That's not exactly fair." Miu pointed out despite the brevity of the situation, "You get to select who fights Naruto and Kenichi, but they can't issue counter-challenges?"

"Meh, I do my best work with a handicap. And I ain't Katsujinken lady." Naruto elucidated, "I'm not Satsujinken either."

"Of course they could always challenge their counterparts in return, if they have the means to locate them and reach them." Mikumo said, answering Miu before addressing Naruto, "You can't be both, nor can you be neither. If you fight, you're one or the other. That's the way things are and if you want to survive you should get used to it."

"Ooh, right there." Naruto said with a hissing, stinging noise, "You see, I've got this problem with people telling me I can't do something or that I have to do one thing or another when I don't like either option." He didn't care if this lady would think he was being disrespectful and would kill him or not. He was tired of this rigid one way or the other philosophy to fighting, "If there's no in-between I'll just make one."

Chikage looked over at Naruto and shook her head, "If that's what you believe, you won't live long enough for me to destroy you myself."

Well Naruto had heard worse things from people before, rather recently as a matter of fact, so hearing it from her didn't bother him that much. What did bother him was that some guy a few years older than them with white hair in a ponytail with a marking of a bird under his left eye and a blue motorcycle outfit had taken it upon himself to jump over to their balcony, hanging off of the railing on the outside close to Miu.

Upon discovering his presence belatedly, both Naruto and Miu had different reactions. Naruto reached into his sleeves to try and go for a weapon if necessary, while Miu flipped out of her chair and landed on the back of it set to defend herself.

With surprise evident on the white-haired young man's face, he slowly pulled himself over the railing and sat down on it, looking closely at Miu, 'Those moves look… like mine.' He then moved off of the railing in order to avoid some shuriken that deposited themselves into the wall nearby. He caught one of them and bent it up in his hand, "You're less than an insect. You're the shadow of a bug. Someone like you could never dream of touching those with wings."

Harsh killing intent or not, Naruto was still set to fight this guy, "Even birds have to land sometime, and when they do they have shadows right behind them." Contradicting him worked just as well too for now though.

"I couldn't care less about you right now." The boy sneered, cutting his eyes Miu's way for a moment. This kid was pissing him off, "Now do yourself a favor and get lost before-."

"-Before you kill me? Ooh, so scary. I've never had anyone almost kill me before." Naruto rebutted sarcastically, "You want to fly, I'll make you fly bitch. It'll only last a few seconds though."

"Enough." Mikado declared coldly, causing any potential conflict to stop in its tracks, "This is not a venue meant for battle, now calm yourselves, all of you. And that means you as well Shou." She warned to the new arrival, getting everyone to tone things down, "I wanted a more see instead of show introduction, but that was ruined. This is Kanou Shou, leader of YOMI and The Sole Disciple of the One Shadow Nine Fists, meant to inherit all of our techniques."

That sounded more like a warning than a simple introduction.

Miu gasped at the telling explanation, "So he's your strongest disciple?" Yami's version of Kenichi, and apparently this had been in the works for longer than Kenichi had been training, 'This could be bad. What if he was the first challenger that Kushinada-san was referring to before?'

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Kenichi – Outside of the Theatre)

"Your disguises suck!" Kenichi argued with Niijima as they crept through the carpeted hallways of the building. Their attempt to get into the front door of the theatre failed, causing them to try and locate a second way in, "What made you think they'd see us as security?"

Taking offense to Kenichi's remark, Niijima scoffed and continued to keep his antennae peeled for danger, "I got us the suits, but of course _you_ can't sell a lie to save your life." Normally that would be seen as a noble trait. Not when they were illegally sneaking into an event, "You're lucky the underlings make such a good distraction."

Admittedly, the brown-haired boy would readily acknowledge that having the Shade Alliance came in handy time and time again, such as that night when they attracted the attention of the actual security detail of the theatre, "I hope they'll all be alright by the way."

"Don't you worry." Niijima said, "While you were fighting Ragnarok and taking on ninjas I trained them all personally in my way of espionage and escape. Working together, there's no way they won't get away. Now let's find Naruto and Fuurinji so you can-."

THUMP!

Upon being reminded about the original reason for their intrusion, Kenichi sank forward with his head against the wall moaning pitifully, "My best friend…" He said, slowly bumping his head off of the surface, "I let him beat me to the punch like that…"

"Does your self-esteem really suck that badly?" Niijima hit Kenichi across the back several times to rouse him to continue onward, "Come on! We don't have time for this!"

"Hey!"

By the time he heard the shout of someone that knew they weren't supposed to be there, Niijima's legs had already sent him scurrying in the opposite direction. Kenichi could handle it. It was his fault they were caught anyway, 'The general has to stay alive at all costs! All costs!'

"Oh…" Kenichi continued to groan, "Did I ever have a chance?"

"Wait, that's Ryouzanpaku's Number One Disciple!"

Almost on autopilot, Kenichi leaned back, pushing his way off of the wall to avoid an axe kick that would have broken his neck. Automatically lashing out with a side elbow aimed at the person that originally attacked him, he found it blocked by a second person that grabbed it.

The kicker was a young dark-skinned man with curly black hair in a ponytail while the one that grabbed him was another lighter-skinned martial artist with neck-length bowl-cut black hair. Both were attired in black Chinese uniforms. Kenichi didn't even notice their appearance, his body automatically reacting to their attacks and defending himself accordingly.

Kenichi bent his body backward to avoid a second kick to the head from the dark-skinned boy, simultaneously twisting his grabbed elbow to turn the tables in the grappling struggle with the second fighter. He planted his hand on the ground and moved his body so that simply standing back up straight flipped one of the boys over his head and onto the ground with a resounding crash.

"Holy crap!" The remaining standing fighter said before kicking directly upward between Kenichi's legs in what he felt was a vulnerable position for him. This was blocked by an instinctual crossing of Kenichi's legs at the knees, part of a defense taught to him by Sakaki to protect important areas of weakness on his person, 'Is this guy even taking us seriously? Shou-sama is the only one that beats us this easily!'

'What am I supposed to actually say if they find me? I know what I'm doing is wrong at heart, but what if this whole thing is really a serious test run for a relationship?' Kenichi thought to himself as in response to witnessing his opponent prepare another kick he shifted to a quick Karate stance.

His lead and rear hands held palms facing up to time the incoming attack of his enemy. Using his front hand, Kenichi fended off the kick and moved it forward in the same motion as if to attack. The moment his enemy pulled his leg back to prepare a defense, Kenichi used his forgotten unused rear right hand to shoot forward faster than the front left, devastating the prematurely prepared young man with a punch straight to the face.

"Meotoude (Married Couple's Hand)!"

"Hayami!" The lighter-skinned fighter shouted in concern after bearing witness to his comrade getting dropped in short order, 'That's serious high-level Karate! What is this guy, a machine?' Once again trying to grab Kenichi, he struck out with his hands in some probing punches before managing to snake his grasp around one of Kenichi's wrists, 'Got him!'

Not particularly, as Kenichi used the close proximity to place his other hand front-ways underneath the boy's chin. When he tried to swat it away, abandoning his grab to do so, Kenichi used his newly freed hand to strike upward on his bent elbow roughly, bringing forth a raised palm strike from hell, "Ma Style Takusoushou (Elbow Lifting Palm)!"

All of this occurred in a matter of seconds.

Niijima almost crapped his pants at the sight of it. He knew that Kenichi had defeated Hermit fresh after the news of him joining YOMI and being revealed as Tanimoto Natsu dropped, but he hadn't _seen_ it. Watching this was almost scary, especially the almost vacant look on Kenichi's face that went with it the entire time.

"Where the fuck did THAT come from?" He could only step over the fallen bodies of the two YOMI understudies en route to Kenichi who was still thinking deeply to himself, "Are you on steroids or something? That was outrageous! Were you even trying?"

"Huh?" Being prodded by the grating yelling of Niijima, Kenichi looked around after beating down his attackers, "Yeah, of course I was trying. Sandbagging gets you hurt. But, it's hard to explain."

Not really. He was really just reacting to the things he saw instead of really fighting for a victory. His masters always told him that he over-thought things too much in fights. Apparently fighting with a vacant mind paid off this time with offensive-minded opponents.

It was probably best to not make a habit out of that though.

Slow claps came from the end of the hall, directing their attention to a black-gloved nicely dressed Ryuuto, seemingly pleased by Kenichi's performance, "Disciples of 'God Hand' Hongou Akira of the One Shadow, Nine Fists. You made that look easy Ken-chan. You didn't even use your Seikuuken." He commented, "I mean, they weren't the top disciple of God Hand, but he only has three and to handle two of them so handily."

"Odin." Kenichi said in recognition, preparing for another fight, "I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with the First Fist after Ragnarok broke apart, but I guess I'm not that lucky."

Ryuuto repositioned his glasses on his face as his smile fell slightly, "You really don't remember me do you? Me or the promise we made?" With a sigh, he simply shrugged his shoulders, "I guess the challenge coin I sent you will have to suffice for a new promise."

Upon being reminded of the golden coin he'd gotten a few days ago, Kenichi's eyes went wide, "You're the one from YOMI that challenged me? But why me instead of Naruto? You've met him before." It couldn't have just been because of the History's Strongest Disciple thing, it was more than that.

"We've met before too. A long, long time ago as a matter of fact." Ryuuto insisted, "But if you don't recall anything there's no need to force anything. Just remember-." His gaze became cold and serious, "-The challenge isn't fulfilled until I annihilate you in battle and take my emblem back, or until you defeat me instead." In response, Kenichi stood at the ready in his stance of choice, "No. I want you to know what this means to me first. That's the only way I can get you to fight with your full strength. I want to crush the Ken-chan that remembers, so think hard. I'll be in touch."

"You're just going to go?" Kenichi shouted after him as Ryuuto disregarded him and walked away clean, "Wait! Tell me what you were talking about!" Color him curious after everything that had been said, "How can you just leave after that?"

"Like this." Ryuuto said casually, "Because you won't attack me from behind unprepared. That's the pride of martial artists like you and I." He was far from unprepared however, as illustrated when he turned around to snatch something out of the air that Kenichi had thrown at him. Opening his hand to look down at him, Ryuuto went wide-eyed at the sight of a simple yin-yang badge.

Kenichi's arm was still extended from the throw as he reeled it back in, "I know it's not really as valuable as some gold coin with your emblem on it… but that's a very important possession I obtained a long time ago. I guess it's my emblem. I wear it every day." He said, earnest, heartfelt, and determined in his approach as he showed Ryuuto the gold coin, "So I'll ask you to hold onto that the way I'm holding onto this, until we fight."

Staring intently at the badge until his hand shook, Ryuuto just began to chuckle to himself. That chuckle slowly expanded into full-blown laughter that confused Kenichi and Niijima as to what caused the cool-tempered young man to lose his composure that way.

Eventually it died down and he wiped a tear of mirth from his eye underneath his glasses, "After this, now I'm really surprised that you don't remember the promise, but this makes it okay for now. I'll hold onto this until we fight Ken-chan. Then we fight for both."

With that being said, he continued on his way back to his seat, only to find himself passed by Naruto and Miu, both looking to exit. Actually, Naruto looked like he wanted to go back and punch someone in the face, but was fighting with himself to not get too heated.

"S'up Ryuuto." Naruto greeted amicably but gruffly as he and Miu passed what was supposed to be their enemy. Even she spared him a wave of sorts.

Ryuuto just stared after him for a second before shaking his head and walking on off to return to his balcony box. It wasn't really that hard to piss someone like Naruto off in his opinion, but he still wondered what did it.

"Stupid pretty boy… gonna knock his teeth out if I see him again. Gonna call me a shadow of a worm with a straight face and hit on Miu right in front of me…"

"Naruto-kun calm down."

Hearing that, Ryuuto guessed that he came across Kanou Shou… personally. Which was odd because they weren't supposed to do something like introduce themselves. But since he was the Sole Disciple he was probably granted leeway to skirt that condition set by the masters, "I didn't think he'd like him."

With Naruto and Miu, the latter was trying to keep Naruto from turning a 180 and starting a fight that would have no advantage for him, "Just forget about it for now. It's fine."

"It is not fine. Fuck that motherfucker." Naruto groused down the hall, "I'm sorry." He cursed freely, but dropping that many needlessly was always uncalled for, "I know the rules of engagement here, but I was about to make a scene in there. I took a full act of him running his mouth. That Mikumo lady warned him like six times to shut up, and she didn't do anything when he didn't!"

Sitting between Naruto and Shou as the would-be peacekeeper since he was nice to her, Miu eventually had to grab Naruto's arm to keep him from pulling out a kunai on a wire underneath his kimono sleeve. He was a breath away from attempting to assault the bird-loving martial artist with a deadly weapon during a sitdown.

Originally she was just going to let him cool down and head back in to finish the show, but figured that it wasn't interesting enough to hold Naruto's attention away from trying to inflict severe bodily harm on Shou. Eventually she suggested that they go home, and there was no reason to stay.

"You don't think I can beat him do you?"

That question from Naruto surprised the girl. It was quieter than she was expecting due to his current temper, so it stunned her when he spoke so softly. It had already been established that Shou was not to be the mystery challenger. Even so, thoughts of fighting him permeated Naruto's mind.

If it happened, could he win? A person trained his entire life to fight, just like Naruto and Miu, meant to inherit every style of the ten strongest Satsujinken fighters in the world and blend them together in the most dangerous form of mixed martial arts imaginable.

Kenichi himself, in something of a similar boat of inheriting styles, only had five of them. Even with the training he was getting being raised to a new level, could he win either?

After truly taking the time to think about it, Miu decided to be honest. Opening her mouth to give him a real, confident answer, they were both greeted by the sight of Kenichi and Niijima, "Kenichi-kun? Niijima-san? What are you two doing here?"

And there was the kicker. The entire time they'd been on their way there, Kenichi hadn't thought of a halfway decent excuse to use for why he was intruding on what he perceived to be a date between his best friend and his dream girl.

Luckily an experienced liar had his back in Niijima, "You should know to bring all the backup you can to things like this. You never know right?" He said, laughing victoriously.

At that moment, Naruto and Miu looked down the hall at the two unconscious Karate disciples that Kenichi had beaten down, "Huh. Thanks guys. We appreciate that." He said, getting an enthusiastic nod of agreement from Miu, "Alright, walk her home Kenichi."

"Ara, where are you going Naruto-kun?" Miu asked as she noticed Naruto walk down the hall to the exit with a devilish smirk on his face, "We could all walk home together and split up somewhere down the line."

"No, you guys go on ahead. I'm not going straight home actually."

"Why not?"

"Because I just remembered that son of a bitch in the balcony had a motorcycle outfit on and smelled kind of like exhaust." Naruto muttered to himself under his breath before speaking up, "No reason! See you guys tomorrow morning!"

Niijima's delinquent senses went off, surprisingly around Naruto and decided he should follow him to see what was up with that, "Well good luck getting Fuurinji home Kenichi old buddy, and good fight!"

After watching Niijima bolt off, Kenichi then realized that this left him all alone with Miu. A very gorgeous Miu, decked out to the nines and still looking very fine. Swallowing down his nerves he decided to make some conversation on the walk out, "Ahem, so did you have a good time on your date before YOMI showed up?" For some reason that got him a confused look, "The date with Naruto-san. The one you just had?"

Realization struck Miu and resulted in her pressing her hand to her chest as she laughed, "No, no. Are you kidding? That wasn't a date. This whole time we both knew about the fact that Yami would probably send people here. We didn't think we'd see seven of the ten lead disciples of the One Shadow Nine Fists, but he asked me here for backup. That's why you're here isn't it? You were worried and came to back us up too even though he only had two tickets."

Oh… Kenichi was realizing that he was an idiot. That propensity of his to overreact was just too much sometimes.

Still though, she was throwing him a line and he had to take it.

"Haha, you know me. I just want to help you." Kenichi said with sheepish laughter, hoping that she bought his hokey reply.

He received an extremely warm smile for his troubles though, "I know. You're a wonderful person, and I'm lucky to have you as my friend." Kenichi swore he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, but the moment was ruined when he heard the growl of a stomach, "…Oh, we were going to wait to eat after the show ended."

Window of opportunity: open.

"Would… you like to go get something with me?" Yeah, that didn't sound desperate.

"Yes, of course! But you don't think I'm overdressed for anything quick do you?"

Thank you Naruto. He really was a good friend for serving this moment up for him on a silver platter, as unintentional as it was. May God smile down upon him for his clueless yet much appreciated benevolence. Truly he was a deity of empty-headedness, sent to make two halves of the same moron in Kenichi.

Brothers in dumbass, that was what they were.

"Do you think we can find an open place with a good parfait Kenichi-kun?"

"Uh sure. I don't think it's that late."

XxX

(Later That Night – Outside of the Theatre)

At the end of the show, the YOMI kids remained in as the rest of the Yami-sponsored patrons filtered out, mostly so they could remain behind while Mikumo scolded Shou for trying to break the terms of the challenge meeting and start a fight out of turn against Naruto.

As the leader of YOMI he was supposed to set a better example in obeying the masters of Yami, especially since he was learning from all of the top ten ranked members. But after enduring it and being dismissed with the others, he didn't care.

"Man, Kushinada-sensei is going to try and rip my head off the next time I train with her." Shou said to the other six main members walking out with him, "It's a good thing that's not going to be for a while. Give her some time to forget."

"She won't forget." Chikage said matter-of-factly in return.

"I know that! I was trying to be positive!" The leader of the group shouted to the little girl that didn't even flinch, "You are one seriously creepy goddamn kid, you know that?" Chikage kept quiet. She just turned and looked up at him with her big melancholy eyes, "…Don't look at me like that."

"So that was Uzumaki." Pollux, the large American, said as he chose to keep his words short and sweet, "I can't get a read on him. His ki seemed just as heavy as ours but not as intense." He wasn't even intentionally flaring it like they were though. It was just there, "…And Shirahama Kenichi beat up your bodyguards Suparna."

Noting that his codename was used, Shou responded, "I missed seeing that guy. Oh man. But Odin called him first and I want our new member to feel welcome." The head of the disciples said before frowning hatefully, "I hope he wasn't just a grub like Uzumaki was. I really don't see what Odin was talking about, or why Kensei-sama would care about that pest."

The American girl Castor simply laughed a bit to herself and held her hair up for a slight pose as she walked, "I had his undivided attention. He couldn't take his eyes off of me until Shou scared him." She stopped and shot Shou a short glare, "I don't appreciate that 'oh leader'."

"Do you always have to be the center of attention sister?" 'Pollux' asked the buxom teenage girl with a touch of worried exasperation at her cavalier view of stealing the show.

"But of course. It's the nature of the Luchadora after all!" Castor said, waving her hand in her gigantic brother's face teasingly, "Of course with your boring-ass fighting style you wouldn't understand that Ethan."

"Please use my codename _Rachel_."

"Ha!"

Rolling his eyes at the byplay of his fellow YOMI members, Enshin Chou chose to cut himself loose and depart from his 'comrades'. He didn't see them as such. They were basically just all in his way as far as he was concerned.

Jihan had long since departed from the rest of them, and aside from that, there were no other YOMI members present at the time, all busy elsewhere at the time of the meeting and the show. With the crown prince, he felt he was better than them anyway, and he actually had his own ride waiting for him the moment he stepped outside, unlike the rest of them that had to go to a parking lot.

On the way, Shou noted the content smile on Ryuuto's face and moved over to him, "So what's got you in such a good mood noob?"

"I could ask the same of you after everything Kushinada-sama said to you." Ryuuto replied, never losing his pleasant expression. He was in far too good a mood on this night after having his challenge accepted.

At Ryuuto's inquiry, Shou dramatically placed his hand over his heart and sighed, "Love at first sight my friend. Love at first sight. And sitting next to that toad Uzumaki, it just made her beauty shine through that much more."

"You mean Fuurinji-san?"

"Fuurinji? As in Fuurinji Saiga's daughter?"

"I wouldn't know. I'd assume so if that's your reaction."

"Ah, all the more reason to love her. It's destiny. She and I are destined to fly together."

Castor developed a dark countenance at having to hear about the pretty, traditionally dressed girl that was a part of the guest of honor party in the balcony next to Mikumo's, "I don't want to hear anything about her." Nothing made her happier to know that girl had left before she had to hear anything about her looks from any of the other patrons that would have seen her after the show let out.

"Hey I'm serious!" Shou said, bounding in front of the group and turning around to face them showingly as he walked backwards to continue talking, "I'll meet her again, and I'll bring her over to our side. It's a matter of fate, and ours are intertwined in the skies." As they entered the parking lot he turned around and stopped dead cold.

So did everyone else as a matter of fact, because none of them could really believe what they were seeing.

The prized racing bike, Shou's customized motorcycle that he had transported to every country that he visited, that he used as his primary method of transportation, had been completely disassembled, down to the chassis. All of the parts were littered randomly across the parking lot.

Ryuuto, in his good mood, tried his absolute best to keep from laughing. He failed miserably.

It didn't take too much longer after that for Castor to join in even more ecstatically than her laughing predecessor. Just cackling gleefully at their leader's expense, "Haha, oh man! Who could have done this without any of the guards catching them? Oh, it's so good."

Shou walked forward and picked up the exhaust pipe off of the pavement and sighed. There was only one person whose fighting style description it was to be better at these sorts of things than fighters in every other style, "…Uzumaki Naruto is like a rash… between my balls and thigh."

How did he even do that?

He had a little black ninja knife on him and that was it, wasn't it? How do you disassemble a racing bike with a knife you could comfortably hide up your sleeve?

After all, it wasn't like someone trained by a specialist in all sorts of weaponry could learn how to properly hide more tools than he possibly needed in a kimono could he? And there was absolutely no way that the same person would have allowed someone his seedy friend to record him disassembling the bike to later put on the internet, right?

On a partially related note, the next day at school Naruto felt the need to ask Miu if she knew anything that could get oil stains out of the fabric of a high quality kimono.

* * *

**And that's chapter. It's my dad's birthday today. Thanks a lot for being around old man. You'll never know how much I appreciate everything you've done and you still do for me. Rest assured it will be repaid in kind one day soon. A simple gift for you and my mom every quarter of the year just ain't enough.**

**Anyway, later days everybody. I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time if you stay tuned. If you'll excuse me now, I've got a UFC show to finish watching.  
**

**Kenchi out.**


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